DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 


&8  59 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


DEMOCRACY 
AND    RACE    FRICTION 

A  STUDT  IN  SOCIAL  ETHICS 


BY 


JOHN  MOFFATT  MECKLIN,  PH.D. 

PROFESSOR   OF   PHILOSOPHY    IN   THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF   PITTSBURGH 


NrfD 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1921 

All  rights  rettrvtd 


COPYRIGHT,  1914, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  April,  1914. 


J.  8.  Cnihlng  Co.  —  Berwick  <k  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


THE   HONORABLE 

WILLIAM   CLINTON   MARTIN       - 

WHO   BY   HIS   LIFE   HAS   EXEMPLIFIED   THE   SPIRIT 

OF  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  THIS  BOOK  IS 

AFFECTIONATELY  DEDICATED 


t  JL' 


PREFACE 

THE  writer  of  the  following  pages  disclaims  at  the 
outset  any  pretensions  toward  a  final  solution"  of  the 
race  problem.  The  years  of  study  and  observation 
of  which  the  book  is  the  final  outcome  have  strength- 
ened him  in  the  conviction  of  its  insolubility. 

There  are  certain  problems  which  from  their  very 
nature  do  not  admit  of  a  categorical  solution.  They 
are  as  perennial  as  human  existence  itself.  The 
real  meaning  of  life  is  found  in  frankly  acknowledg- 
ing them  and  in  bravely  facing  the  duties  to  which 
this  acknowledgment  gives  rise.  It  is  only  the  dog- 
matic philosopher  or  the  orthodox  theologian  who 
presents  us  with  final  solutions  and  then  content- 
edly takes  an  intellectual  and  moral  holiday.  For 
the  masses  of  men  life  is  largely  a  compromise  with 
insuperable  difficulties,  a  persistent  and  courageous 
struggle  for  a  modus  vivendi. 

The  race  question  belongs  to  this  class  of  essen- 
tially insoluble  problems.  It  is  insoluble  largely 
because  it  springs  from  those  deep-lying  and  slow- 
moving  forces  that  make  for  ethnic  solidarity  or 
ethnic  diversity.  The  majority  of  those  who  have 
final  solutions  for  it  spend  their  lives  at  a  distance 


PREFACE 

from  the  section  where  it  exists  in  its  most  aggra- 
vated form.  The  masses  of  both  races  at  the  South 
are  so  occupied  with  the  immediate  exigencies  of 
the  social  situation  that  they  have  little  time  to 
philosophise  upon  it.  They  are  happy  to  attain  a 
tolerable  adjustment  of  difficulties.  The  insistent, 
pervasive,  and  inescapable  nature  of  the  problem 
even  educates  them  into  the  feeling  that  it  belongs 
to  the  eternal  order  of  things.  Its  interferences 
with  their  hopes  and  plans  are  accepted  in  very 
much  the  same  spirit  as  are  the  idiosyncrasies  of 
the  weather,  the  behaviour  of  the  market,  or  disease 
and  death. 

The  writer's  purpose  will  be  attained  if  he  suc- 
ceeds in  indicating  a  little  more  clearly  what  the 
problem  really  involves.  With  this  end  in  view  he 
has  brought  to  bear  upon  the  subject  the  results 
of  the  work  that  has  recently  been  done  in  social 
psychology  by  such  writers  as  Tarde,  Baldwin, 
McDougall,  Ross,  and  others.  The  analysis  of  the 
social  process  by  which  the  individual  lives  himself 
into  the  life  of  the  group  and  at  the  same  time 
attains  mental  and  moral  maturity  has,  been  fol- 
lowed by  an  examination  of  race  traits  with  special 
reference  to  the  negro  to  determine  how  far  they 
influence  the  process  of  becoming  social  and  solid 
with  one's  fellows. 

The   results   thus   gained   have   been   utilised    to 


PREFACE  IX 

''explain  the  imperfect  way  in  which  the  negro  has 
assimilated  the  civilisation  of  the  white  and  why 
the  colour  line  appears  universally  where  whites  and 
blacks  are  brought  together  in  large  numbers.  In 
view  of  the  probable  persistence  of  the  colour  line, 
the  immediate  duty  of  the  negro  group  is  found  in 
the  creation  within  its  own  limits  of  social  traditions 
and  habits  which  will  enable  it  to  develop  the  type 
of  citizens  demanded  by  American  democracy.  The 
book  closes  with  an  attempt  at  a  restatement  of  the 
meaning  of  democracy  on  the  basis  of  the  conclu- 
sions reached  in  the  earlier  chapters. 

As  would  be  naturally  expected,  by  far  the  greater 
amount  of  the  illustrative  material  for  the  principles 
laid  down  has  been  drawn  from  the  relations  of  the 
whites  and  blacks  in  the  southern  states,  where  long 
residence  has  given  the  writer  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance with  the  facts.  Free  use  has  been  made,  how- 
ever, of  data  in  connection  with  the  relations  of 
whites  and  blacks  in  the  English  colonies,  especially 
in  Jamaica  and  South  Africa.  The  attitude  of  the 
whites  of  the  Pacific  coast  towards  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese  convinces  the  writer  that  his  conclusions 
hold  not  only  for  the  negro,  but  for  all  races  differ- 
ing fundamentally  from  the  general  ethnic  type  of 
American  citizenship. 

The  writer  wishes  to  express  his  gratitude  to 
Senator  John  Sharpe  Williams  and  to  his  esteemed 


X  PREFACE 

friend,  Professor  E.  M.  Weyer,  of  Washington  and 
Jefferson  College,  for  valuable  criticisms  and  sugges- 
tions. He  also  acknowledges  the  debt  due  to  a  for- 
mer colleague,  Professor  J.  W.  Tupper,  of  Lafayette 
College,  and  to  his  accomplished  wife  for  their  unfail- 
ing interest  and  encouragement  in  the  preparation 
of  the  work.  Finally,  the  writer's  hearty  thanks 
are  due  Mr.  Bishop,  of  the  Congressional  Library 
at  Washington,  and  his  splendid  corps  of  assistants, 
for  their  many  kindnesses  extended  to  him  during 
the  summers  of  1911  and  1912. 

DECEMBER,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTKR  PAGE 

I.    THE  BASIS  OF  SOCIAL  SOLIDARITY  i 

II.    RACE  TRAITS 19 

III.  RACE  TRAITS  (Continued) 47 

IV.  THE  NEGRO  AND  HIS  SOCIAL  HERITAGE     .        .  77 
V.    RACE-PREJUDICE 123 

VI.    THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  COLOUR  LINE      .        .  157 

VII.    CREATING  A  CONSCIENCE 182 

VIII.    THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT      .        .  219 

IX.    EQUALITY  BEFORE  THE  LAW        ....  247 

INDEX .271 


DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE 
FRICTION 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  BASIS  OF  SOCIAL  SOLIDARITY 

THE  difference  between  the  social  or  political  posi- 
tion actually  assigned  a  racial  group,  such  as  the  ne- 
gro, and  the  position  to  which  it  is  nominally  entitled 
under  free  institutions  is  a  most  prolific  source  of  race 
friction  in  American  democracy.  The  legal  status  of 
the  black  as  determined  by  the  Constitution  and 
written  law  is  one  thing;  his  actual  social  status 
marked  out  by  the  "colour  line"  is  something  quite 
different.  The  students  of  race  questions  are 
coming  to  recognise  in  ever  increasing  measure 
that  the  examination  of  the  unwritten  laws  which 
give  rise  to  race  friction  is  essentially  a  psycho- 
logical matter.  It  involves  the  study  of  hereditary 
capacities  of  race  as  they  are  exhibited  in  social 
activities.  It  must  analyse  the  process  by  which 
the  child,  at  birth  little  more  than  a  bundle  of  instincts 
and  reflexes,  becomes  a  complete  social  and  moral 
being.  It  must  ask  especially  to  what  extent  heredi- 


2  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

tary  racial  differences  influence  this  process  of  be- 
coming social  and  solid  with  one's  fellows. 

The  instincts  are  undoubtedly  the  most  primitive 
and  powerful  factors  in  all  forms  of  social  solidarity. 
They  constitute  in  man,  as  well  as  in  the  gregarious 
animals  and  insects,  the  hereditary  equipment  which 
makes  possible  the  various  forms  of  social  activity. 
They  may  fitly  be  called  the  "cosmic  roots"  of  the 
social  life  of  man.  The  complete  social  and  moral 
self  is  simply  the  self  that  results  when  rational  inter- 
pretation and  direction  have  been  given  to  original 
instinctive  impulses.1  If  natural  selection  has  brought 
about  differences  between  races  in  this  hereditary 
instinctive  equipment,  they  are  of  fundamental  im- 
portance for  the  understanding  of  phenomena  of  race 
friction.  "Inasmuch  as  instinct  represents  the 
preformed  pathways  in  the  nervous  system,"  says 
Ellwood,  "that  is,  created  by  selection,  we  should  not 
expect  to  find  exactly  the  same  instinctive  reactions 
in  the  different  races  of  men.  Their  instinctive  reac- 
tions, while  fundamentally  the  same,  will  vary  in 
some  degree  because  the  different  racial  stocks  have 
been  exposed  to  different  selective  agencies.  This  ex- 
plains why  race  is  a  factor  in  social  organisation  and 
evolution."2 

1  McDougall,  Social  Psychology,  Chs.  I,  II. 
*  Popular  Science  Monthly,  1912,  p.  267;  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  VI,  p.  735. 


THE   BASIS   OF   SOCIAL   SOLIDARITY  3 

1 '  Such  differences  in  the  instinctive  reactions  of  vari- 
ous groups  and  races  exert  an  indirect  rather  than 
a  direct  influence  upon  group  behaviour.  They 
function  in  the  life  of  the  race  very  much  as  tempera- 
mental differences  function  in  the  conduct  of  indi- 
viduals. Temperament  does  not  enter  consciously 
into  the  decisions  of  the  individual  though  it  does 
give  them  a  distinct  bias.  Likewise  hereditary  racial 
traits  do  not  consciously  influence  group  action  though 
undoubtedly  they  shape  its  general  trend.  When 
friction  between  race  groups  is  strong,  these  differences 
become  focal  in  the  group  mind.  Being  essentially 
irrational  and  lying  very  near  the  springs  of  action, 
they  easily  prevent  the  free,  rational  expression  of 
the  group  will.  They  reach  their  highest  intensity 
in  the  mob  psychosis  of  the  lynching  bee,  which  shows 
that  they  are  essentially  phenomena  of  the  group 
rather  than  the  individual.  Race  prejudice  is  un- 
known between  two  members  of  widely  divergent  races 
who  have  been  reared  apart  from  their  racial  groups. 
Human  social  solidarity  is  distinguished  from  that 
of  the  gregarious  animals  by  the  extent  to  which 
instinctive  social  capacities  have  been  rationalised. 
The  apparently  intelligent  cooperation  and  division 
of  labour  observed  in  a  beehive  is  not  rational.  It 
is  probably  the  result  of  remarkable  qualitative 
differentiations  in  the  sense  of  smell  brought  about 


4  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

by  natural  selection.  Different  smells  for  food,  larvae, 
outgoing  and  incoming  paths,  for  nest-mates  and 
foreigners  make  possible  this  marvellous  insect  society. 

Likewise  the  social  life  of  the  higher  animals,  while 
including  purely  psychological  elements,  is  mainly 
instinctive  and  irrational.  Cries  and  calls  and  other 
forms  of  sign  language  are  essentially  instinctive. 
The  farmer  who  replied  to  the  child's  question, 
"What  makes  the  old  sow  grunt  and  the  piggies 
sing  and  whine  ?"  by  saying,  "I  suppose  they  does  it 
for  company,  my  dear,"  was  essentially  correct.1  Such 
sounds  are  not  uttered  with  the  conscious  purpose  of 
establishing  intercommunication.  They  are  con- 
genital and  hereditary  in  their  origin.  Hence  they 
arouse  similar  affective  states  and  similar  behaviour 
in  all  the  members  of  the  group  by  which  group 
solidarity  and  welfare  are  furthered. 

The  rationalisation  of  instinct  as  it  has  taken 
place  in  man  is  necessary  to  social  progress.  Instinct 
is  purposive,  but  not  consciously  so.  The  affective 
life  is  formless.  It  looks  neither  before  nor  after. 
Only  in  so  far  as  sentiment  and  emotion  are  shot 
through  with  ideas  do  they  have  point  and  direction. 
Hence  any  mental  content  that  is  proposed  as  a  basis 
for  action  must  have  at  least  an  ideational  framework. 
It  must  point  somewhither,  foreshadow  some  goal 

1  Morgan,  Animal  Behaviour,  p.  195. 


THE   BASIS   OF  SOCIAL  SOLIDARITY  5 

of  action.  The  more  primitive  and  powerful  instincts, 
which  at  lower  levels  were  a  help  to  man  in  his  struggle 
for  existence,  are  now  often  a  constant  menace  in  our 
highly  civilised  society.  They  are  strongly  aroused 
by  rape,  murder,  grave-robbing,  wife-beating,  and 
the  like.  The  welfare  of  a  delicately  adjusted  social 
order  demands  their  stern  inhibition  in  favour  of 
rationally  thought  out  action. 

The  effect  of  the  increasing  complexity  of  modern 
society  is  to  emphasise  ideas  as  the  basis  of  social 
activities.  "The  reality  of  this  close-knit  life," 
writes  Professor  Ross,  "is  not  to  be  seen  and  touched; 
it  must  be  thought.  The  sins  it  opens  the  doors  to 
are  to  be  discerned  by  knitting  the  brows  rather  than 
opening  the  eyes.  It  takes  imagination  to  see 
that  the  bogus  medical  diploma,  lying  advertisement, 
and  fake  testimonial  are  death-dealing  instruments. 
It  takes  imagination  to  see  that  savings-bank  wrecker, 
loan  shark,  and  investment  swindler,  in  taking  liveli- 
hoods take  lives.  It  takes  imagination  to  see  that 
the  business  of  debauching  voters,  fixing  juries,  seduc- 
ing lawmakers,  and  corrupting  public  servants  is 
like  sawing  through  the  props  of  a  crowded  grand- 
stand. Whether  we  like  it  or  not  we  are  in  the  or- 
ganic phase,  the  thickening  perils  that  beset  our  path 
can  be  beheld  only  by  the  mind's  eye."  1 

1  Sin  and  Society,  p.  40. 


6  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

This  increased  emphasis  upon  the  abstract  mental 
processes  as  the  basis  of  social  solidarity  is  of  first- 
rate  importance  for  the  student  of  race  questions.  It 
indicates  that  the  measure  of  efficient  democracy  is 
found  in  the  extent  to  which  the  rank  and  file  of 
citizenship  make  the  ideals  embodied  in  democratic 
institutions  real  in  actual  life.  This  is  difficult  when 
race  differences  encourage  ignorance  and  group  antip- 
athies. Efficient  democracy  is  practically  impossible 
of  attainment  where  we  have  present  a  large  group, 
differing  fundamentally  in  race  traits,  to  a  large  extent 
illiterate,  lacking  in  the  sober  sense  of  responsibility 
that  comes  with  the  possession  of  property,  often 
devoid  of  patriotism  local  or  national,  and  with  no 
clear  ideas  on  social  or  political  issues. 

History  teaches  us  that  the  conditions  most  favour- 
able to  an  efficient  democracy  exist  where  the  group 
is  relatively  small,  intelligent,  ethnically  homogeneous, 
and  united  by  common  economic,  religious,  and  polit- 
ical interests.  Possibly  this  ideal  has  been  most 
closely  approximated  in  the  townships  of  New  Eng- 
land. The  section  most  unfavourable  to  the  realisa- 
tion of  efficient  democracy  in  this  country  is  the 
"  black  belt"  of  the  far  South,  where  almost  all  these 
conditions  are  lacking. 

Race  traits  become  of  more  practical  significance 
when  we  come  to  examine  the  process  by  which  the 


THE   BASIS   OF   SOCIAL   SOLIDARITY  1 

individual  makes  himself  social  and  solid  with  his 
fellows.  The  new-born  child,  as  a  potentially  social 
creature,  falls  heir  to  a  twofold  inheritance.  He 
inherits  an  instinctive  equipment  from  his  ancestors 
to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made.  He  grad- 
ually appropriates  also  a  social  heritage,  the  legacy  of 
group  traditions  and  ideals.  The  basis  of  the  first 
is  physical,  that  of  the  second  mental  and  social. 
The  social  heritage  represents  so  many  possible  ways 
for  the  spiritual  development  of  the  individual's 
instinctive  equipment.  It  is  the  legacy  left  the  child 
by  the  gradual  crystallisation  of  human  thought  and 
experience  in  the  permanent  forms  of  political  in- 
stitutions, religion,  art,  language,  science,  or  philos- 
ophy. It  is  essentially  a  heritage  of  ideas.  Back 
of  the  creed,  political  platform,  or  business  corpora- 
tion are  ideas  which  represent  to  the  individual  instru- 
ments for  social  activity  and  so  many  possible  ways 
for  developing  his  powers.  A  social  institution  is 
not  in  reality  a  separable  entity.  It  is  rather  com- 
posed of  a  body  of  ideas  which  a  group  of  men  share 
in  common.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  these  common  ideas 
that  they  engage  in  the  corresponding  social  activities. 
In  this  sense  a  church  or  a  business  organisation  is 
purely  mental.  It  has  no  existence  apart  from  the 
minds  of  the  men  who  are  loyal  to  it  and  cooperate 
to  make  the  ideas  underlying  it  real  in  lif  e  and  conduct. 


8  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

The  process  by  which  the  child  lives  himself  into 
the  civilisation  he  has  inherited  is  essentially  an 
imitative  one.  Since  persons,  particularly  within 
the  family  group,  are  the  source  of  his  pleasures  and 
pains,  he  early  begins  to  attend  to  them  and  imitates 
their  actions.  This  process  of  imitation  includes 
a  great  deal  more  than  the  mere  external  appro- 
priation of  the  acts  and  words  of  others.  By  placing 
himself  imitatively  in  the  same  position  as  others 
the  child  reinstates  in  his  own  consciousness  their 
feelings  and  ideas.  There  are  therefore  no  limits  to 
the  extent  to  which  the  average  individual  may 
appropriate  the  cultural  experience  of  the  group  stored 
up  in  language,  literature,  political  and  religious 
institutions.  The  cultured  man  may  unconsciously 
have  woven  into  the  fabric  of  his  personality  the 
moral  and  spiritual  gains  of  an  entire  civilisation. 

A  question  of  fundamental  importance  in  this 
connection  is  the  extent  to  which  the  appropriation 
of  the  social  heritage  is  conditioned  by  the  instinctive 
equipment.  It  is  evident  that  the  successful  candi- 
date for  social  assimilation  must  come  into  the  world 
equipped  with  hereditary  instinctive  tendencies  which 
do  not  run  counter  to  the  customs  and  ideals  of  the 
group  where  his  lot  is  cast.  If  he  is  born  with  ab- 
normally developed  impulses  and  appetites  which 
lead  him  to  develop  dangerous  anti-social  tendencies, 


THE  BASIS   OF  SOCIAL   SOLIDARITY  Q 

society  intervenes  in  the  interest  of  the  community 
to  restrain  him.  Society  isolates  the  insane  or  the 
morally  degenerate.  This  is  the  simplest  form  of  the 
problem. 

The  situation  becomes  much  more  difficult  when  we 
have    fundamental    racial    differences    produced    by 
natural  selection  operating  under  widely  divergent 
conditions  of  environment.     In  view  of  the  intimate 
and  organic  relations  between  the  child  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  ancestry  and  the  democratic  institutions  to 
which  he  falls  heir  at  birth  it  would  seem  at  least v 
plausible  that  his  social  instincts  would  further  al 
more  immediate  and  thorough  sympathy  with  those  *vvkc^ 
institutions  than  is  possible  in  the  case  of  the  Chinese  **a.  ^ 
or  negro  child  which  inherits  race  instincts  shaped  C"J|*J 

**  V-<xj      ** 

by  a  totally  different  race  history.  ,The  problem  is 
one  that  we  shall  consider  in  a  later  chapter.  We 
remark  in  passing  that  writers  divide  into  two  schools 
according  as  they  emphasise  the  psychological  and 
plastic  or  the  biological  and  hereditary  elements. 
The  psychological  school  asserts  or  implies  the  essen- 
tial identity  of  instincts  and  mental  capacities  among 
all  races.  They  call  attention  also  to  the  plasticity 
and  adaptiveness  of  man  which  enable  him  to  assimi- 
late any  social  heritage  so  that  the  limit  of  his  attain- 
ments is  to  be  found  in  the  possibilities  of  the 
civilisation  in  which  he  is  born  rather  than  in  heredi- 


10  DEMOCRACY   AND    RACE   FRICTION 

tary  powers.  The  biological  school,  following  the 
lead  of  Galton,  lays  emphasis  upon  the  hereditary 
elements. 

Undoubtedly  the  facts  of  profoundest  significance 
for  the  understanding  of  the  phenomena  of  race  fric- 
tion in  American  democracy  are  those  connected 
with  the  genesis  and  growth  of  personality.  We  have 
already  suggested  that  personality  develops  through 
the  imitative  absorption  of  the  social  heritage  by  the 
individual.  It  will  be  influenced  very  materially, 
therefore,  by  the  character  of  the  social  setting  and 
.the  extent  to  which  the  individual  is  permitted  to 
share  in  it.  De  Tocqueville,  with  keen  insight  into 
the  genius  of  American  democracy,  long  ago  observed 
that  the  intent  of  its  free  institutions  is  to  place  at 
the  disposal  of  the  individual  all  the  potentialities 
possible  for  the  unfolding  of  his  personality.  "The 
free  institutions  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  United 
States  possess,  and  the  political  rights  of  which  they 
make  so  much  use,  remind  every  citizen,  and  in  a 
thousand  ways,  that  he  lives  in  society.  They 
every  instant  impress  upon  him  the  notion  that  it  is 
the  duty  as  well  as  the  interest  of  men  to  make  them- 
selves useful  to  their  fellows."  Hence  "there  is  no 
man  who  does  not  feel  the  value  of  the  public  good 
will,  or  who  does  not  endeavour  to  court  it  by  drawing 
to  himself  the  esteem  and  affection  of  those  amongst 


THE   BASIS   OF   SOCIAL  SOLIDARITY  II 

whom  he  is  to  live."  l  Any  distinction  of  class  or 
caste  therefore  must  result  in  defeating  the  purpose 
of  free,  democratic  institutions,  by  stunting  and 
starving  the  personalities  of  the  group  discriminated 
against.  For,  as  has  been  well  said,  "The  individual 
cannot  become  a  full  adult  and  a  capable  person  in  any 
sense  without  becoming  also  by  the  same  movement  social 
and  solid  with  his  fellows"  2  This  is  a  fact  of  funda- 
mental importance. 

The  source  of  race  friction  in  American  democracy 
should  now  be  evident.  It  is  found  in  the  refusal 
of  the  dominant  racial  group  to  admit  members  of 
other  widely  divergent  racial  groups  to  the  full  en- 
joyment of  those  indispensable  means  for  the  at- 
tainment of  the  completest  selfhood  which  the  com- 
munity offers.  The  discontent  aroused  by  such 
discriminations  is  inevitable  and  to  a  very  large 
measure  justifiable.  It  arises  from  the  feeling 
that  the  actual  facts  are  a  bare-faced  stultification 
of  the  intent  and  claim  of  American  democracy. 
Lecky,  writing  of  the  revolutionary  fathers,  speaks  of 
"the  grotesque  absurdity  of  slave-owners  signing  a 
Declaration  of  Independence  which  asserted  the 
inalienable  right  of  every  man  to  liberty  and 
equality."  3  He  might  also  criticise  the  "grotesque 

1  Democracy  in  America,  II,  pp.  109,  no,  112. 

1  Baldwin,  The  Individual  and  Society,  p.  77. 

1  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  VI,  p.  282. 


12  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

absurdity"  of  their  descendants  championing  a 
democracy  which  claims  to  give  freedom  and  equality 
to  all  while  placing  several  millions  of  its  citizens  under 
social  and  civil  disabilities  which  make  the  enjoy- 
ment of  these  democratic  privileges  impossible. 

The  effect  of  this  upon  the  negro  is  unfortunate. 
In  particular  the  negro  "intellectuals,"  who  have 
powers  that  enable  them  to  appropriate  the  social 
heritage  of  their  time,  complain  bitterly  of  the 
starving  of  personality  which  results  when  they  are 
debarred  from  the  complete  enjoyment  of  privileges 
necessary  to  their  highest  spiritual  development. 
This  is  the  secret  of  the  undertone  of  pessimism 
that  runs  through  the  utterances  of  Dr.  DuBois 
and  his  school.  Here  too  must  be  sought  the  ex- 
planation of  their  implied  or  openly  avowed  claim 
to  social  equality  and  racial  intermarriage.  They 
seem  to  feel  that  only  with  this  can  come  the  com- 
plete socialisation  of  the  negro  prerequisite  to  the 
attainment  of  the  highest  cultural  level  by  the  group 
as  a  whole.  What  is  objected  to  is  not  so  much 
the  right  of  individuals  of  the  dominant  race  to  reject 
him  as  the  right  of  society  as  a  whole  to  debar  him 
from  complete  social  solidarity  solely  because  of  race. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  determination  on  the 
part  of  the  white,  now  fairly  pronounced  in  every 
section,  expressed  sometimes  in  definite  legal  restric- 


THE  BASIS   OF  SOCIAL  SOLIDARITY  13 

tions  or  in  those  equally  effective  unwritten  laws 
that  go  to  determine  status;  to  debar  the  Hegro  as  a 
group  from  this  complete  social  solidarity.  To 
what  extent  this  is  based  upon  unreasoning  prejudice 
or  to  what  extent  it  is  due  to  an  instinctive  and  justi- 
fiable effort  to  safeguard  the  social  heritage  of  the 
white,  we  are  not  now  concerned  to  say.  Right  or 
wrong,  it  is  the  crux  of  the  negro  problem.  All 
minor  complications,  political,  social,  educational, 
moral,  or  religious,  centre  around  this  fundamental 
fact.  It  may  be  frankly  admitted  that  the  hope- 
lessness of  any  sort  of  a  solution  that  is  more  than  a 
modus  vivendi  is  due  primarily  to  this  stubborn  re- 
sistance of  the  white  group  to  complete  social  assimila- 
tion of  the  negro.  This  is  recognised  in  the  title,  and 
on  every  page,  of  M.  W.  Ovington's  recent  interesting 
study  of  the  social  status  of  the  negro  in  New  York 
City,  entitled  Half  a  Man. 

Negro  reformers  and  leaders  such  as  Booker  T. 
Washington  seem  to  recognise  this  fact  in  their  efforts 
to  uplift  their  race.  They  have  consciously  set  for 
themselves  the  task  of  creating  among  the  negroes 
themselves,  more  or  less  independent  of  the  social 
and  moral  traditions  of  the  whites,  group  ideals  and  a 
social  heritage  which  will  insure  a  fitting  environment 
for  the  attainment  of  a  type  of  citizenship  commen- 
surate with  the  lofty  demands  of  American  democracy. 


14  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

The  task  is  indeed  a  large  one  that  finds  no 
parallel  hi  the  history  of  democratic  institutions. 
In  spite  of  Booker  Washington's  noble  optimism, 
expressed  in  the  famous  Atlanta  utterance  as  to  com- 
munity of  ideals  together  with  racial  segregation, 
the  outcome  is  at  least  doubtful.  Is  it  possible  to 
have  complete  social  solidarity  only  at  the  highest 
level  of  spiritual  and  moral  ideals,  while  insisting  upon 
caste  distinctions  at  the  lower  levels  of  the  social 
order  ?  It  is  in  the  home,  the  church,  and  the  school 
that  the  individual  is  trained  for  a  sympathetic  par- 
ticipation in  these  ultimate  conceptions.  What  sort 
of  social  solidarity  is  possible  and  what  sort  of  a 
citizenship  will  result  in  a  social  order  where  we  have 
a  fundamental  dualism  consisting  of  two  sets  of  social 
values,  two  standards  of  morality,  one  for  the  white 
and  another  for  the  black  ? 

Any  one  acquainted  with  southern  conditions  in 
the  "black  belt"  to-day  will  realise  that  this  is  no 
mere  possibility,  but  is  to  a  very  large  extent  a  reality. 
There  exist  in  the  minds  of  both  blacks  and  whites 
two  conceptions  of  conduct,  recognised  as  valid  in 
two  different  spheres  and  with  little  in  common. 
This  explains  the  paradoxical  fact  that  a  moral  lapse 
of  a  negro  often  does  not  make  him  lose  social  stand- 
ing with  the  negroes  nor  with  the  whites,  while  the 
condemnation  of  a  white  by  his  fellows  for  committing 


THE   BASIS  OF   SOCIAL   SOLIDARITY  1$ 

the  same  offence  will  often  be  shared  by  the  negroes 
also.  Each  is  judged  by  the  social  standards  of  his 
group  and  the  other  group  accepts  those  judgments 
as  valid  for  the  individual  and  the  case  concerned; 
there  is  little  free,  immediate  functioning  of  social 
sanctions  independent  of  race  distinctions. 

It  can  be  easily  seen  that  such  a  situation  would 
in  time  bring  about  the  disintegration  of  the  social 
order  but  for  the  fact  that  one  group,  the  white, 
insists  upon  the  supremacy  of  its  set  of  values,  and 
relegates  those  of  the  black  to  a  subordinate  position. 
The  social  conscience  cannot  tolerate  two  standards 
of  values  different  in  quality  and  yet  equal  in  author- 
ity. The  race  discriminations  which  one  meets  at 
every  turn  in  the  South  thus  become  in  their  last 
analysis  a  form  of  self-preservation  adopted  by  the 
group  mind  of  the  white.  They  often  appear  to  the 
outsider  cruelly  unjust,  and  in  individual  cases  perhaps 
they  are ;  but  the  group  mind,  which  thinks  in  compre- 
hensive and  convenient  terms,  has  identified  with  the 
white  skin  the  exceedingly  fundamental  problem  of  the 
preservation  of  the  unquestioned  supremacy  of  social 
ideals  which  are  instinctively  felt  to  be  necessary  to  the 
integrity  and  persistence  of  the  civilisation  of  the  white. 

These  considerations  will  lead  the  reader  to  under- 
stand somewhat,  we  trust,  the  difficulties  that  beset 
the  race  problem.  It  should  enable  us  at  least  to 


1 6  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

enter  sympathetically  into  the  delicate  situations  that 
face  the  leaders  of  both  races  in  the  South  in  partic- 
ular when  they  approach  each  other  in  the  effort 
to  secure  needed  adjustments  of  the  group  interests 
concerned.  For  reasons  which  we  are  now  prepared 
to  understand,  if  not  to  justify,  the  prerequisite  to 
such  a  rapprochement  from  the  southern  white's 
point  of  view  is  the  unconditional  recognition  of  the 
supremacy  of  those  social  values  that  he  has  identified 
with  a  white  skin.  This  would  seem  on  the  face  of 
it  to  demand  that  the  negro  voluntarily  place  himself 
in  a  position  of  social  inferiority,  and  it  is  so  interpreted 
by  the  critics  of  the  southern  point  of  view.  On  the 
other  hand  the  demand  is  made  upon  the  white  to 
admit  a  race  with  a  totally  different  social  history, 
different  instincts,  certainly  backward  in  many 
respects,  to  a  share  in  social  cooperation  and  service 
as  far  as  it  is  possible  without  endangering  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  white's  social  heritage.  The  demand 
upon  the  one  is  self-abnegation,  upon  the  other  for- 
bearance and  sympathy. 

It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  the  problem  is 
essentially  social  not  individual.  '  Friction,  where  it 
does  occur,  is  between  groups  rather  than  individuals. 
The  highest  mutual  respect  exists  between  individual 
whites  and  blacks,  often  genuine  affection.  Few 
men  are  held  in  higher  esteem  by  the  intelligent  whites 


THE   BASIS   OF   SOCIAJ:   SOLIDARITY  17 

of  the  South  than  Dr.  Bookep'Washington,  and  when 
such  men  draw  the  colour  line  against  him  it  is  not  a 
personal  matter,  but  a  matter  of  the  group.  It  is  to 
the  credit  of  negro  leaders  in  the  South,  though  not 
elsewhere,  that  they  recognise  the  situation  and,  what- 
ever may  be  their  inmost  thoughts,  conform  wisely 
to  this  demand  of  the  white.  At  the  stage  of  civili- 
sation to  which  the  negro  has  attained  any  other 
policy  would  be  disastrous  to  society, 
i- -'The  real  strain  upon  the  social  solidarity  of  the 
South  and  of  the  nation,  so  far  as  the  negro  is  con- 
cerned, will  come  when  he  has,  as  a  group,  acquired 
wealth  and  culture  and  a  social  heritage  that  will 
insure  the  development  of  a  type  of  character  in 
accord  with  the  demands  of  modern  life.  Will  the 
group  mind  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  then  still  continue  to 
hold  him  at  arm's  length  on  the  question  of  colour  only, 
or  will  there  be  a  complete  social  assimilation  ?  The 
question  is  now  more  or  less  academic  but,  with  the 
flight  of  time  and  the  inevitable  progress  of  the  negro, 
it  is  bound  to  occupy  more  and  more  the  central  point 
so  far  as  the  race  question  in  this  country  is  concerned. 
In  conclusion  we  may  say  that  two  things  are 
important  for  the  understanding  of  the  race  question. 
On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  fundamental  assumption 
of  our  democracy  to  which  we  always  rally  when 
great  questions  arise,  namely,  the  inherent  right  of 


1 8  DEMOCRACY    AND   RACE   FRICTION 

every  member  of  society  to  all  the  privileges  and 
opportunities  of  citizenship.  Stated  in  psychological 
terms,  it  is  the  right  to  the  legitimate  use  of  all  the 
social  heritage  for  the  unfolding  and  development  of 
personality.  De  Tocqueville,  the  earliest  interpreter 
of  our  institutions,  recognised  this  great  outstanding 
fact.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  being  brought  home  to 
us  with  increasing  force  as  the  stream  of  national  life 
has  widened  and  thrown  us  into  contact  with  different 
races,  that  social  solidarity  is  affected  in  ways  hereto- 
fore unsuspected  by  race  traits.  We  are  learning 
that  our  institutions  are  not  eternal  a  priori  forms,  not 
"God-given  franchises,"  as  Sumner  taught,  arbi- 
trarily superinduced  upon  the  social  order,  but  are 

<«&'' 
guaranteed  ultimately  and  only  by  intelligence  al^d 

integrity,  and  by  the  ethnic  homogeneity  of  the 
social  texture.  No  people,  no  matter  what  its  in- 
stitutions and  traditions,  can  be  greater  than  the 
actual  rank  and  file  of  its  citizenship,  in  whose  life  and 
thought  those  institutions  find  concrete  embodiment. 
The  essence  of  the  race  question  is  found  in  the 
presence  of  an  alien  and  backward  race  in  a  highly 
cultivated  and  complex  society,  demanding  the  most 
informed  and  efficient  type  of  citizenship,  and  recog- 
nising no  right  that  is  not  the  result  of  proven  social 
worth.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  solution  of 
such  a  question  demands  infinite  patience  and  wis- 
dom, and,  above  all,  —  time. 


CHAPTER  II 
RACE  TRAITS 

THAT  in  a  general  way  heredity  plays  a  large  part 
in  determining  the  individual's  attitude  toward  so- 
ciety has  already  been  suggested.  The  ideals  that 
go  to  form  the  social  setting  into  which  every  indi- 
vidual is  born  and  which  offer  the  framework  for  the 
unfolding  of  his  personality  make  certain  demands 
upon  him  from  the  hereditary  and  racial  point  of 
view.  He  must  be  able  to  learn  and  what  he  has  to 
learn  is  predetermined  very  definitely  by  society.1 
He  must  be  born  with  a  normal  endowment  in  the 
way  of  reflexes  and  instincts  which  will  insure  his 
development  into  a  social  being  in  harmony  with 
his  environment.  Even  the  simple \  group  life  of  the 
savage  requires  of  the  child  the  ability  to  learn  certain 
rites  and  customs  and  in  the  absence  of  this  power  he  is 
ruthlessly  eliminated.  The  narrow  compass  of  the 
savage's  social  heritage  prevents  great  range  of  indi- 
vidual variations — a  fact  of  prime  importance  in  the 
consideration  of  the  race  history  of  the  negro. 

1  Baldwin,  Social  and  Ethical  Interpretations,  pp.  80  ff. 


20  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

In  civilised  society  the  individual  born  with  innate 
traits  that  lead  him  to  commit  crime  or  to  evince 
signs  of  moral  degeneracy  is  eliminated.  Likewise 
society  denies  its  privileges  to  the  imbecile  or  those 
so  poorly  endowed  with  powers  of  assimilation  as  to 
be  unable  to  learn  those  fundamental  categories  of 
conduct  that  lie  at  the  basis  of  the  normal  personality. 
This  is,  of  course,  necessary  for  the  preservation  of 
society.  Where  the  majority  of  a  group  are  either 
incapacitated  for  sharing  in  its  common  ideals  or 
are  by  reason  of  hereditary  traits  antagonistic  to 
its  social  traditions  the  group  would  speedily  disinte- 
grate. The  ideals  that  make  the  cooperation  of  men 
in  a  democracy  possible  are  not  arbitrarily  imposed 
from  without.  They  are  more  than  conventional. 
They  persist  and  render  effective  communal  action  pos- 
sible by  virtue  of  the  loyalty  and  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  them  by  the  individual.  The  greater  the 
racial  diversity  of  the  citizenship,  the  greater  there- 
fore the  problem  of  democracy.  ' 

The  framers  of  our  democracy  were  excusable  in 
ignoring  entirely  the  factors  of  race  differences  because 
their  political  ideals  were  for  the  most  part  inherited 
from  a  people  which  had  attained  ethnic  homoge- 
neity in  the  insular  atmosphere  of  England.  These 
ideals  presuppose,  therefore,  a  uniform  background 
of  race  instincts  and  race  traditions  of  which  they 


RACE   TRAITS  21 

are  the  normal  and  rational  expression.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  separate  Magna  Charta,  Locke's  Treatise  on 
Government,  or  the  Declaration  of  Independence  from 
the  genius  of  the  English  people.  So  intimate  and 
vital  are  these  ideas  to  us  that  we  have  been  inclined 
to  make  of  them  a  political  fetish.  Forgetting  that 
in  reality  these  conceptions  of  political  liberty  and 
of  the  rights  of  man  are  the  creation  of  our  own  politi- 
cal race  genius,  we  set  them  up  as  absolute,  saying, 
"  these  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel,  that  brought  thee  up  out 
of  the  land  of  Egypt  and  the  house  of  bondage." 
In  Reconstruction  days  these  ideas  received  their 
first  rude  test  when  with  a  heaven-defying  optimism 
we  proceeded  to  apply  them  rigorously  to  all  political 
recalcitrants,  on  the  assumption  apparently  that 
they  were  the  only  and  original  form  of  democracy 
and,  therefore,  all  sufficient.  However,  half  a  cen- 
tury's experience  with  the  emancipated  negro  and 
contact  with  other  races  through  immigration  and 
our  insular  possessions  have  brought  us  to  realise 
that  race  is  an  element  which  in  a  democracy  especially 
cannot  be  ignored.  This  fact  is  also  modifying  some- 
what our  conception  of  democracy.1 

What,  then,  are  we  to  understand  by  race  ?    The 
term  has  been  variously  defined,  sometimes  as  some- 

1  See  Commons'  excellent  chapter,  "Race  and  Democracy,"  in  his 
Races  and  Immigrants. 


22  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE    FRICTION 

thing  fixed  and  hereditary,  sometimes  as  plastic  and 
changeable.  Struck  by  similarities  in  language  and 
culture,  some  reason  from  them  to  underlying  heredi- 
tary traits  that  are  constant.1  Others,  emphasising 
similarity  of  bodily  characteristics  such  as  colour,  hair, 
skull,  and  skeleton,  have  arrived  at  similar  conclu- 
sions.2 Observing  the  change  and  variety  among  races, 
another  school  concludes  that  race  is  a  purely  theoreti- 
cal term  and  defines  it  biologically  or  sociologically 
according  as  they  limit  it  to  physiological  or  social 
processes.3  Writers  cite  in  support  of  the  theory 
of  the  plasticity  of  race  :  (i)  the  facts  of  race  inter- 
mingling as  it  has  taken  place  and  is  now  going  on, 
(2)  the  humanitarianism  born  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
oneness  and  essential  equality  of  all  men  and  inim- 
ical, therefore,  to  the  idea  of  fixed  race  differentia- 
tions, and  (3)  the  inspiration  for  effort  which  is  de- 
stroyed by  the  idea  of  character  being  the  result  of 
race  heredity.  The  theory  as  to  the  fixity  of  race  has 
in  its  favor  the  indisputable  fact  that  types  persist,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  Hebrew  and  the  negro,  in  the  most 
widely  divergent  social  and  climatic  conditions.  "It 
is  surprising,"  says  Professor  G.  Stanley  Hall,  "to  see 
how  few  of  his  aboriginal  traits  the  negro  has  lost, 

1  Gobineau,  Driesmann. 

1  LaPouge,  Ammon. 

1  Hertz,  Moderne  Rassentheorien,  pp.  3  S. 


RACE   TRAITS  2$ 

although  many  of  them  are  modified."  l  Sir  Harry  H. 
Johnston,  remarking  upon  the  recrudescence  of  race 
traits  in  the  negroes  of  Haiti,  says,  "  In  fact  in  almost 
all  the  features  of  their  lives,  except  in  dress,  language, 
and  rudeness  of  manners,  the  Haitian  peasantry  has 
returned  to  African  conditions."  2 

When,  as  a  result  of  natural  selection  operating 
upon  a  segment  of  the  human  family,  there  arises  a 
group  similar  in  origin,  similar  in  offspring,  reacting 
by  virtue  of  similar  endowments  in  the  same  way  to 
external  forces  and  guaranteeing  through  common 
hereditary  characteristics  the  persistence  of  the  gen- 
eral type  it  embodies,  we  have  what  may  be  called  a 
race.3  Race  is  therefore  both  fixed  and  changeable, 
theoretical  and  real.  Evolutionary  biology  seems  to 
teach  that  temperamental  racial  differences  arise 
as  parallels  to  the  bodily  differences  produced  through 
the  pressure  of  environment.  The  maintenance  of 

1  "The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  XII, 
P-  35°. 

2  The  Negro  in  the  New  World,  p.  194.    Of  special  value  in  this 
connection  is  Tillinghast,  The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America.     See 
also  Semple,  Influences  of  Geographical  Environment,  p.  1 20.    A  com- 
parison of  Chs.  XXXIV-XXXIX  of  Dowd's  The  Negro  Races  with 
Odum's  Social  and  Mental  Traits  of  the  Negro,  or  Hoffman's  Race  Traits 
and  Tendencies  of  the  American  Negro  will  prove  very  illuminating. 

g  This  is  substantially  the  definition  of  Ploetz,  "Die  Begriffe  Rasse 
und  Gesellschaft  und  die  davon  abgeleiteten  Disziplinen,"  Archive 
fur  Rassen-  und  Gesellschafts-Biologie,  I,  p.  7. 


24  DEMOCRACY   AND    RACE   FRICTION 

the  group  life  throughout  long  lapses  of  time  in  pecu- 
liar climatic  or  geographical  conditions  finally  results 
in  the  development  of  special  group  characteristics, 
mental  as  well  as  physical.  It  should  be  remembered, 
however,  that  the  great  race  types  such  as  the  Au- 
straloid,  the  Negro,  the  Caucasian,  and  the  Mongo- 
lian *  are  the  result  of  age-long  selection  under  definite 
conditions  so  that  the  characteristics  of  the  group 
are  relatively  permanent.  Certainly  no  pronounced 
race  types  have  appeared  in  the  memory  of  man  either 
as  the  result  of  race  intermingling  or  through  the 
operation  of  climatic  or  economic  conditions.  The 
great  races  have  lost  their  plasticity  to  a  large  extent, 
owing  partly,  no  doubt,  to  age  and  partly  to  man's 
increased  ability  to  control  his  environment.2 

There  seems  to  be  little  doubt,  however,  that  in 
the  beginning  race  differences  were  the  outcome  of 
the  selective  influence  of  environment.  To  be  sure 
the  aristocratic  school  of  Gobineau,  with  its  emphasis 
on  history  and  its  glorification  of  Aryanism,  finds  the 
key  to  all  progress  in  certain  fixed  race  endowments. 
It  even  asserts  that  the  transfer  of  the  civilisation  of 
an  advanced  race  such  as  the  Anglo-Saxon  to  a  lower 

1  The  classification  given  by  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  op.  cit.,  p.  i.     For 
other  classifications  see  "Dictionary  of  Races  and  Peoples,"  Reports 
of  the  Immigration  Commission,  Vol.  V,  p.  6. 

2  Semple,  op.  cit.,  p.  119. 


RACE   TRAITS  25 

race  such  as  the  negro  can  only  take  place  through 
intermingling  of  blood.1  The  same  idea  of  the  para- 
mount importance  of  certain  constant  race  traits 
tinges  later  writers,  particularly  of  Germany,  who 
approach  the  problem  of  race  largely  from  the  stand- 
point of  Weismannism.2  But  these  traits  must  orig- 
inally have  been  the  result  of  selective  environment 
in  conjunction  with  happy  variations  within  the 
group,  so  that  the  comparative  fixity  of  race  charac- 
teristics is  apparently  due  to  the  rigid  and  prolonged 
process  of  natural  selection  to  which  the  group  has 
been  subjected.3 

The  habitats  of  the  Australoid  and  negro  races,' 
namely,  Australia  and  the  tropical  region  to  the  south 
of  the  desert  of  Sahara,  are  typical  illustrations  of 
the  selective  influence  of  environment.  The  home 
of  the  negro  race  is  relatively  small,  uniformly  tropi- 
cal in  climate,  and  with  very  little  geographical  diversi- 
fication, consequently  variations  among  individuals 

1  Woltmann,  Politische  Anthropologie,  p.  158. 

2  Ibid.    Driesmans,  Keltenthum,  also  Rasse  und  Milieu.    Ammon, 
Die  Naturliche  Auslese  beim  Menschen,  and  Die  Gesellschaftsordnung 
und  ihre  naturlichen  Grundlagen.    The  latest  and  perhaps  the  most 
successful  glorification  of  das  Germanenthum  is  Chamberlain's  Die 
Grundlagen   des   Neunzehnten   Jahrhunderts    (English    translation). 
Schallmeyer,  though  a  follower  of  Weismann,  repudiates  this  sense- 
less Rassediinkel.     See  his  Vererbung  und  Auslese  im  Lebenslauf  der 
Volker,  p.  383. 

8  Driesmans,  Rasse  und  Milieu,  Ch.  I. 


26  DEMOCRACY    AND    RACE    FRICTION 

or  groups  are  not  encouraged.  The  result  is  a  social 
organisation,  with  a  monotonously  simple  mode  of 
life,  and  pronounced  and  deeply  ingrained  race  traits, 
in  which  the  instinctive  and  the  impulsive  predomi- 
nate over  the  rational.  Because  of  these  conditions 
the  West  African  negroes  have,  according  to  Keane, 
"made  no  perceptible  progress"  for  a  thousand 
years.1  It  is  imperative  that  both  the  optimist  and 
the  pessimist  on  the  negro  question  bear  in  mind  this 
background  of  race  history  when  they  approach  the 
vexed  question  as  to  the  ability  of  the  negro  to  adapt 
himself  to  our  strenuously  industrial  and  highly 
complex  civilisation. 

When  we  come  to  describe  more  in  detail  the  heredi- 
tary race  traits  that  are  supposed  to  determine  the 
social  mind  of  a  group,  we  are  met  by  the  psychologist 
who  insists  that  the  bond  of  human  society  is  essen- 
tially rational  and  that  hereditary  factors  are,  there- 
fore, negligible  as  belonging  to  a  lower  level.2  The 

1  Man;  Past  and  Present,  p.  84.  Dowd,  The  Negro  Races,  perhaps 
overemphasises  the  effect  of  geographic  and  economic  conditions  upon 
the  mental  traits  of  the  various  groups.  See  also  Semple,  op.  tit., 
p.  173  ff. 

3  The  uncritical  humanitarianism  of  the  ethical  idealist  may  be 
ignored.  For  when  we  have  taken  the  philosophical  saltum  mortale 
which  enables  us  to  view  the  race  question  from  the  comfortable 
heights  of  the  ethical  absolute,  differences  which  seem  tragically 
real  to  the  farmer  in  the  "black  belt"  of  the  South  may  very  easily 
dwindle  into  "childish  phenomena  in  our  lives,  phenomena  on  a  level 


RACE   TRAITS  27 

obvious  reply  to  this  attempt  to  divorce  the  physical 
and  the  mental  is  that  man  is  a  psychophysical  being 
and  variations  in  the  physical  organism  would  lead 
us  to  expect  corresponding  differences  in  mental 
traits.  "It  does  not  seem  probable,"  says  Boas, 
"that  the  minds  of  races  which  show  variations  in 
their  anatomical  structure  should  act  in  exactly  the 
same  way.  Differences  of  structure  must  be  accom- 
panied by  differences  of  function,  physiological  as 
well  as  psychological;  and,  as  we  found  clear  evi- 
dence of  difference  in  structure  between  the  races, 
we  must  anticipate  that  differences  in  character  will 
be  found."  1 

The  psychologist  will  further  remind  us  that  what- 
ever hereditary  differences  exist  between  races  must 
be  reconciled  with  the  fact  that  all  men,  irrespective 
of  race,  exhibit  the  same  general  mental  qualities. 
Scientific  tests  have  shown  that,  in  spite  of  the  mar- 
vellous stories  of  travellers,  the  savage  does  not  sur- 
pass the  civilised  man  in  the  acuity  of  his  senses.2 
No  tribe  has  been  found  without  a  well-organised 
language,  showing  that  the  power  of  concept-building 

with  the  dread  of  snakes,  or  of  mice ;  phenomena  that  we  share  with 
the  cats  and  with  the  dogs,  not  noble  phenomena,  but  caprices  of  our 
complex  nature."  Royce,  Race  Questions,  pp.  48,  49. 

1  Boas,  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,  p.  115. 

2  Woodworth,  "Racial  Differences  in  Mental  Traits,"  Science,  N.  S., 
Vol.  31,  pp.  171-186. 


28  DEMOCRACY   AND    RACE   FRICTION 

must  be  present  in  an  elementary  form  among  all 
people.1  Homo  alalus  is  a  fiction;  we  know  only 
homo  sapiens.  The  parallelism  shown  in  the  develop- 
ment of  remote  groups,  where  similar  phenomena, 
such  as  spirit- worship,  taboos,  blood-vengeance, 
animistic  beliefs,  and  the  like  appear,  indicates  that 
the  same  general  type  of  mind  must  be  possessed  by 
all  peoples.2  These  common  mental  aptitudes  would 
correspond  in  a  general  way  to  the  physiological 
similarities  which  make  complete  interracial  fecundity 
possible. 

While  this  is  true,  facts  are  not  wanting  to  show 
that  this  common  stock  of  mental  traits  has  been 
subject  to  change  through  natural  selection  operating 
at  the  level  of  the  instincts  and  motor  reactions.  To 
take  one  illustration,  the  vigour  of  the  sex  instinct  in 
the  African  negro  is  probably  the  result  of  his  long 
struggle  with  unhealthful  environment  and  a  high 
death-rate,  natural  selection  insuring  the  survival 
of  those  groups  only  which  possessed  the  procreative 
impulse  to  a  very  high  degree.  "An  African  baby's 
life,"  says  a  recent  African  traveller,  "is  a  series  of 
miraculous  escapes;  perhaps  if  some  of  the  safe- 
guards so  elaborately  gathered  round  English  children 
were  removed,  we  should  see  some  compensation  for  a 

1  Boas,  op.  cit.,  p.  96. 

*  Thomas,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Jan.,  1905,  p.  450. 


RACE   TRAITfe  29 

higher  death-rate  in  an  improved  stamina  and 
physique.  It  is  quite  evident  that  no  sickly  African 
baby  has  the  smallest  chance  of  surviving  the  host 
of  adverse  circumstances  which  surround  it  on  every 
side.  Its  worst  enemies  are  without  a  doubt  those 
of  its  own  household,  its  mother  being  perhaps  the 
most  formidable  of  all,  as  having  the  maximum  of 
opportunity  for  doing  the  wrong  thing."  1  But  the 
price  paid  for  this  successful  adaptation  to  environ- 
ment in  one  most  important  particular  is  a  stunting 
of  personality  in  other  directions.  No  less  an  au- 
thority upon  the  negro  than  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston  thinks 
that "  this  lust  for  child-begetting  and  child-bearing  has 
left  its  mark  upon  the  negro's  body  and  mentality."2 
So  far  as  the  physical  organism  of  the  negro  goes, 
we  may  infer  different  race  traits,  but  there  is  very 
little  to  indicate  what  his  peculiar  race  traits  are. 
Hoffman  insists  that  the  excessive  mortality  among 
the  negroes  through  such  diseases  as  consumption, 
pneumonia,  scrofula,  as  well  as  infant  mortality,  im- 
plies hereditary  race  traits  and  tendencies  that  are 
different  from  the  white.3  Similar  ideas  are  advanced 
by  Professor  Hall :  "No  two  races  in  history,  taken  as 


1  A.  L.  Kitching,  On  the  Back  Waters  of  the  Nile,  p.  166. 
1  The  Negro  in  the  New  World,  p.  22. 

1  Race  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the  American  Negro,  p.  95.    See  also 
B.  T.  Washington,  Future  of  American  Negro,  p.  165. 


30  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

a  whole,  differ  so  much  in  their  traits,  both  physical 
and  psychic,  as  the  Caucasian  and  the  African.  The 
colour  of  the  skin  and  the  crookedness  of  the  hair  are 
only  the  outward  signs  of  far  deeper  differences, 
including  cranial  and  thoracic  capacity,  proportions 
of  the  body,  nervous  system,  glands  and  secretions, 
vita  sexualis,  food,  temperament,  disposition,  char- 
acter, longevity,  instincts,  customs,  emotional  traits 
and  diseases.  .  .  .  Very  striking  is  their  immunity 
from  malarial  and  yellow  fever,  which  shows  a  dif- 
ferent composition  of  the  blood  and  which  enables 
them  to  work  in  so  many  places  where  the  whites 
cannot." l  On  these  grounds  one  may  assert, 
perhaps,  that  the  negro  is  not  merely  an  uneducated 
Anglo-Saxon  with  a  black  skin.  There  are  pecu- 
liarities in  the  functioning  of  his  instincts,  impulses, 
emotions,  and  modes  of  response  to  external  stimuli 
fundamentally  different  from  those  of  the  white. 
When  we  come  to  define  these  more  in  detail,  however, 
we  find  the  problem  is  by  no  means  an  easy  one. 

Differences  in  the  weight,  size,  and  conformation 
of  the  brain  have  been  made  the  basis  for  making 
psychological  distinctions  between  the  negro  and  the 
white.  Dr.  Bean,  in  an  article,  "  The  Negro  Brain,"  2 
as  a  result  of  a  comparison  of  one  hundred  and  one 

1  "The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  XII, 
PP-  358,  359-  *  Century,  Vol.  72,  pp.  778-784- 


RACE   TRAITS  31 

negro  and  forty-nine  Caucasian  brains,  asserted  that 
the  white  brain  is  larger,  heavier,  with  a  greater 
amount  of  cells  and  larger  anterior  associational 
centres  than  the  negro  brain.  Since  the  frontal  area 
is  supposed  to  contain  the  ideational  centres,  the  con- 
clusion was  that  we  have  here  physiological  differences 
which  explain  the  psychic  peculiarities  of  the  negro, 
namely,  his  lack  of  self-control,  undeveloped  moral 
sense,  immaturity  of  judgment,  and  the  ease  and  fre- 
quency with  which  he  is  swept  away  by  passion  and 
emotion.  The  somewhat  larger  development  of  the 
posterior  areas  of  the  brain  in  the  negro  was  supposed 
to  explain  his  strongly  sensuous  and  emotional 
nature.  Bean  concluded  from  this  that  the  two  races 
are  opposed  in  many  ways,  "the  one  is  a  great  rea- 
soner,  the  other  preeminently  emotional;  the  one 
dornineering,  but  having  great  self-control,  the  other 
meek  and  submissive,  but  violent  and  lacking  self- 
control  when  the  passions  are  aroused  ;  the  one  a 
very  advanced  race,  the  other  a  very  backward  race 
These  conclusions  have  not  found  universal  accept- 
ance, however,  for  a  reexamination  of  part  of  the 
same  material  it  is  claimed  does  not  corroborate 
Bean's  conclusions  with  regard  to  conformation  and 
the  relative  development  of  the  various  parts.1 

1  F.  P.  Mall,  "On  Several  Anatomical  Characteristics  of  the  Hu- 
man Brain,  said  to  vary  according  to  Race  and  Sex  with  especial 


a  "N  *j 

."/     * 


32  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

Perhaps  the  most  that  can  be  said  as  to  the  rela- 
tion of  brain  to  mental  power  is  that  the  average 
cranial  capacity  of  a  race  is  an  index  of  its  intelligence. 
The  average  cranial  capacity  of  the  Australoid  male 
is  1245  c.c.,  that  of  the  African  male  negro  1388  c.c., 
that  of  the  Mongolian  1500-1580  c.c.,  and  that  of  the 
A«\  ;  Caucasian  male  1500-1600  c.c.,  so  that  the  African 
negro  would  appear  to  occupy  a  place  in  the  scale  of 
intellectual  ability  above  the  Australian  and  below 
the  Chinaman  or  the  Englishman.1  Data  collected 
from  the  negroes  enlisted  in  the  civil  war  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  the  American  negro  has  a  greater 
cranial  capacity  than  the  African.2 

A  fact  of  importance  brought  out  by  the  compara- 
tive study  of  the  cranial  capacities  of  races  is  the 
way  in  which  variations  occur.  It  is  found  that  the 
variations  from  the  average  are  fewer  among  negroes 
than  among  Europeans,  while  the  average  of  cranial 

Reference  to  the  Frontal  Lobe,"  American  Journal  of  Anatomy,  Vol. 
IX,  pp.  1-32.  Bean's  article  appeared  also  in  Vol.  V  of  the  same 
journal.  The  impression  made  by  both  these  articles  is  that  the  re- 
sults are  based  upon  an  insufficient  amount  of  material. 

1  Johnston,  The  Negro  in  the  New  World,  p.  10.  See  also  Buschan, 
"Kultur  und  Gehirn,"  Archive  fiir  Rassen-  und  Gesellschafts-Biologic, 
I,  pp.  689-701. 

3  Dr.  S.  B.  Hunt,  "The  Negro  as  a  Soldier,"  Quarterly  Journal  of 
Psychological  Medicine,  I,  pp.  161  ff.  This  author  also  claims  that 
cranial  capacity  varies  with  the  presence  of  white  blood  being  higher 
in  the  mulattoes  than  in  the  negro  of  pure  stock. 


RACE   TRAITS  33 

capacity  is  higher  among  the  latter  than  the  former. 
The  skulls  of  50  per  cent  of  all  whites  show  a  capacity 
of  over  1550  c.c.,  while  only  27  per  cent  of  negro  skulls 
show  a  capacity  above  this  figure.1  If  we  may  reason 
from  skull  capacity  to  mental  ability,  this  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  we  are  not  to  expect  from  negroes  of 
pure  stock  a  great  array  of  geniuses.  It  is  more 
than  probable,  however,  that  all  of  the  race  have 
ability  enough  to  measure  up  to  the  average  require- 
ments of  our  modern  civilisation.  The  problem  in 
this  country  is  still  further  complicated  by  the  pres- 
ence of  two  millions  or  more  of  mixed  blood.  It  is  a 
familiar  fact  that  from  this  mulatto  element  in 
America  have  come  many  with  intellectual  ability 
and  talent  for  leadership. 

The  testimony  of  those  who  have  given  careful 
study  to  the  psychological  characteristics  of  the  negro 
in  his  native  habitat  goes  to  show  that,  while  the; 
general  mental  traits  are  the  same  as  those  of  the 
white,  the  negro  mind  exhibits  a  uniformity  and  a 
monotony  in  striking  contrast  to  the  variety  of  the  / 
mind  of  more  civilised  races.2    Many  travellers  and 
investigators  insist  upon  the  essential  inferiority  of 

1  Boas,  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,  p.  35 ;  cp.  p.  92  S.  LeBon, 
Revue  d'Anthropologie,  1879,  P-  71- 

3  Cureau,  "Essai  sur  la  psychologic  des  races  nfigres  de  1'Afrique 
tropicale,"  Revue  Generate  des  Sciences,  XV,  p.  694.  Boas,  op.  cit., 
Chs.  IV,  V,  VI,  VIII. 

D, 


7 


34  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

the  negro  mind.  "I  own  I  regard  not  only  the 
African,"  says  Mary  Kingsley,  "  but  all  coloured  races, 
as  inferior  —  inferior  in  kind,  not  in  degree  —  to  the 
white  races."  l  It  has  indeed  been  inferred  that  the 
force  of  natural  selection,  operating  upon  the  negro 
for  ages  in  the  conditions  of  tropical  Africa,  has 
caused  him  to  forfeit  higher  mental  powers  in  the 
process  of  attaining  immunity  from  disease  and  the 
handicap  of  climate,  so  that  the  African  negro  repre- 
sents a  degenerate  or  pathological  type.2  It  is  perhaps 
true  that  the  African  negro  represents  a  static  and 
unprogressive,  though  not  necessarily  a  regressive, 
stage  of  civilisation,  due  to  the  fact  that  valuable 
variations  have  been  constantly  discouraged. 

The  few  attempts  to  analyse  the  peculiar  charac- 
teristics of  the  American  negro  indicate  that  he  still 
shows  traces  of  this  mental  and  physical  uniformity 
noted  among  his  kinsmen  in  Africa.  Hrdlicka  finds, 
by  examination  of  some  fourteen  hundred  children 
of  whom  three  hundred  were  negroes,  that  "in  a  gen- 
-  ;'  eral  way,  white  children  present  more  diversity,  negro 
children  more  uniformity,  in  all  their  normal  physical 
characters.  This  becomes  gradually  more  marked 
as  age  increases."  In  particular  he  states,  "the  size 
of  the  head  is  on  the  average  slightly  less  in  negro 

1  Travels  in  West  Africa,  p.  669. 

1  See  Brinton,  The  Basis  of  Social  Relations,  pp.  196,  197. 


RACE  TRAITS  35 

children  than  in  white,  provided  we  consider  this  in 
its  relation  to  the  size  of  the  body.  .  .  .  The  form 
of  the  head  is  less  variable  in  the  colored  children 
than  it  is  in  the  American  born  white  children.  A 
pure  American  colored  child  almost  always  shows  a 
pronounced  dolichocephaly,  while  the  normal  white 
American  child  will  show  every  variation  from  a  mark- 
edly long  head  to  a  pronouncedly  brachycephaly."1 

Arthur  MacDonald,  specialist  in  the  bureau  of 
education,  found  upon  the  examination  of  some 
16,000  white  and  5000  coloured  school  children  of 
Washington,  District  of  Columbia,  the  same  tendency 
towards  uniformity  in  mental  as  in  physical  traits 
of  the  negro.  It  should  be  observed  in  passing 
that  no  distinction  was  made  in  MacDonald's  tests, 
apparently,  between  mulatto  and  pure  black.  The 
negroes  of  Washington  as  a  whole  are  a  selected  group, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  similar  tests  applied  to 
negro  children  of  the  "black  belt"  of  the  South  would 
show  still  greater  uniformity.  MacDonald  attrib- 
utes to  racial  influence  the  prevailing  long-headed- 
ness  among  negro  boys  (the  percentage  is  twice  that 
of  the  whites),  and  finds  that  long-headedness  accom- 
panies mediocre  ability.2  At  the  level  of  sense-per- 

1  Ales  Hrdlicka,  "Physical  Differences  between  White  and  Colored 
Children,"  The  American  Anthropologist,  Vol.  XI,  1898,  pp.  347-350. 

2  Experimental  Study  of  Children,  pp.  997,  1009. 


36  DEMOCRACY   AND    RACE   FRICTION 

ception  there  seems  to  be  little  difference  between 
the  races,  the  negro  child  manifesting  perhaps  a 
greater  sensitiveness  to  heat.  But  with  age  the 
brightness  or  assimilating  power  of  the  negro  increases, 
the  reverse  of  what  is  true  in  white  children,  where 
it  would  seem  increased  mental  diversity  and  in  par- 
ticular the  maturity  of  reasoning  powers  enables  the 
white  to  depend  less  on  memory.  A  comparative 
table  of  the  percentages  of  ability  in  the  various 
studies  bears  out  in  the  main  the  contention  of  mental 
uniformity.  Thus  it  was  found  that  in  all  studies 
232  white  boys  were  bright,  64  dull,  and  161  average. 
Coloured  boys  showed  358  bright,  176  dull,  and  236 
average.  It  will  be  seen  that  of  these  two  groups 
the  latter  shows  considerably  the  greater  mental 
uniformity.1 

The  very  great  increase  in  insanity  among  the 
negroes  in  various  sections  of  the  country  has  started 
some  interesting  inquiries  as  to  the  bearing  this 
may  have  upon  the  mental  powers  of  the  race.  Berk- 
ley states  that  for  the  years  1884-1892  the  insane 
coloured  inmates  of  the  Baltimore  asylum  increased 
over  300  per  cent.2  It  would  be  natural  to  expect 
that  with  the  changed  social  conditions  since  eman- 

^  MacDonald,  op.  cit.,  p.  1043. 

V  *H.  J.   Berkley,  "Dementia  Paralytica  in  the  Negro,"  Johns 

Hopkins  Hospital  Bulletin,  No.  34,  Oct.,  1893,  p.  94. 


RACE   TRAITS  37 

cipation,  where  the  negro  is  more  and  more  taking 
his  place  in  society  in  active  competition  with  the 
white,  the  strain  would  make  itself  felt.  Such  seems 
to  be  the  fact,  for  insanity  was  exceedingly  rare  in 
slavery,  and  as  late  as  1883  the  head  of  an  insane  asy- 
lum of  North  Carolina  could  state  that  he  had  never 
seen  among  the  negroes  a  case  of  general  paralysis.  T\ 
As  we  leave  the  natural  home  of  the  negro  and  come 
north  to  the  centres  of  population  we  find  the  per- 
centage of  insane  increases  most  perceptibly.  The 
percentage  in  1880  was  one  insane  to  every  1505 
negroes  in  Mississippi  and  one  to  every  333  in  New 
York  State.1  To-day  in  cities  such  as  Baltimore  and 
Washington  the  percentage  of  insane  among  the 
negroes  is  practically  the  same  as  that  of  the  whites. 
These  facts  may  mean  simply  that  the  negro  has 
taken  his  place  in  modern  society  and  like  his  white  \ 
competitors  is  paying  the  penalty  for  its  strenuous- 
ness.  It  may  mean  also  that  the  very  rapid  rise  of 
the  percentage  of  insanity  without  a  corresponding 

increase  in  the  intellectual  intensity  of  his  life  indi- 

/"• 
cates  that  mentally  he  is  not  able  to  stand  the  pace.      t  ^> *  j& 

This  is  a  surmise  only  for  the  confirmation  of  which 
we  must  wait  upon  further  facts.  White,  evidently 
having  in  mind  the  tense  northern  city  life,  writes, 


1  White,    "The    Geographical    Distribution   of   Insanity   in  the 
United  States,"  The  National  Geographic  Magazine,Oct.,  1903,  p.  376. 


171002 


38  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

"the  Negro  has  been  thrown  upon  his  own  physical 
and  mental  resources  and  has  entered  the  strife  for 
existence  as  an  inferior;  he  is  syphilised  and  alco- 
holised,  his  food  is  ofttimes  unsuitable  .  .  .  his 
surroundings  are  usually  unhygienic  and  tuberculosis 
finds  in  him  an  easy  prey."  These  facts  alone  may 
account  for  the  rapidity  with  which  he  is  filling  the 
insane  asylums. 

Perhaps  the  most  characteristic  feature  of  the 
mental  economy  of  the  negro  and  the  one  which  has 
done  much  to  make  him  the  despair  of  his  friends  and 
the  scorn  of  his  enemies  is  his  mobility.  In  no  trait 
of  his  nature  does  he  show  himself  more  a  child  of 
Africa  than  in  this.  The  following  is  a  description 
of  the  Bantu  negro  of  western  Africa  by  one  who 
enjoyed  excellent  opportunities  for  observation. 
"The  negro  soon  forgets  the  favor  that  demands 
recognition,  as  well  as  the  evil  that  stirs  up  hatred. 
He  does  not  recall  the  danger  that  engenders  prudence 
nor  the  obstacle  that  educates  in  perseverance.  He 
has  no  recollection  of  the  dearth  which  counsels 
^foresight  nor  of  the  deeds  which  perpetuate  traditions. 
He  lives  under  the  impressions  of  the  moment,  in- 
different to  the  instructions  of  a  past  already  for- 
gotten and  without  a  care  for  the  future.  The  present 
estate,  good  or  ill,  effaces  all  the  sorrows  and  joys 
of  the  moment  just  passed.  If  the  present  is  agree- 


RACE   TRAITS  39 

able,  he  feasts  upon  it  to  satiety ;  if  it  is  otherwise,  he 
supports  it  with  resignation."  ^f 

In  defence  of  the  seeming  inability  of  the  primitive 
man  to  inhibit  his  impulses  or  to  concentrate  his 
thought  it  has  been  urged  that  we  may  not  reason 
directly  from  the  complex  and  highly  rationalised 
society  as  we  know  it  to  the  primitive  society  of  the 
savage  without  doing  him  injustice.  The  fickleness 
of  disposition  and  unbridled  outbursts  of  passion 
which  the  travellers  criticise  in  the  savage  usually 
occur  in  connection  with  issues  which  are  important 
from  the  civilised  man's  point  of  view,  but  unimportant 
or  incomprehensible  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  savage. 
When  it  is  a  question  of  the  observance  of  taboos  or 
of  the  solution  of  problems  at  the  level  at  which  the 
savage  moves,  he  may  exhibit  powers  of  inhibition 
or  of  perseverance  of  the  highest  order.  The  impor- 
tant distinction  must  be  made,  however,  that  inhibi- 
tions or  control  of  conduct  which  is  quasi-instinctive 
or  at  most  determined  by  fixed  customs  and  taboos 
and  hence  only  partially  rational  cannot  be  classed 
with  instances  of  free  choice  and  the  pursuit  of  ration- 
ally conceived  ends  that  characterise  civilised  society.2 

1  Cureau,  "  Psychologic  des  races  n6gres  de  L'Afrique  tropicale," 
Revue  Gtnerale  des  Sciences,  XV,  p.  645. 

J  Boas  seems  open  to  this  criticism  in  Ch.  IV  of  The  Mind  of  the 
Primitive  Man. 


4O  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

While  the  American  negro  has  inherited  the  mobile 
temperament  of  his  African  ancestors,  his  problem 
is  very  different  from  that  of  the  African  savage. 
He  has  been  ruthlessly  torn  from  a  semirational 
social  order  of  rites  and  taboos  which  to  some  extent 
acted  as  a  check  upon  those  instincts  and  impulses 
developed  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  primitive  existence. 
As  a  siave  he  was  subjected  to  the  advanced  civilisa- 
tion of  the  white  which  he  only  imperfectly  absorbed 
since  he  lacked  that  freedom  and  personal  initiative 
necessary  for  the  assimilation  of  the  forms  and  ideals 
of  a  free  democracy.  He  received  this  freedom  by  the 
act  of  emancipation,  but  his  brief  contact  with  civilisa- 
tion was  insufficient  for  the  training  of  race  instincts 
and  impulses  shaped  by  thousands  of  years  spent 
in  a  totally  different  environment.  This  is  essen- 
tially the  race  problem  so  far  as  the  negro  is  concerned. 
It  is  the  problem  of  the  socialising  and  rationalising  of 
the  impulses  of  a  race. 

The  phenomena  of  suggestion,  so  strikingly  in 
evidence  in  the  individual  and  social  life  of  the  negro, 
are  due  primarily  to  his  mobility  of  temperament. 
Poverty  of  ideas  and  uniformity  of  mental  constitution 
but  increase  his  natural  suggestibility.1  The  edu- 
cated man  with  a  richly  stored  mind  is  not  so  subject 

1  Vierkandt,  Natunolker  und  Kulturoolker ,  pp.  89  ff.  Also  Stoll, 
Suggestion  und  Hypnotismus  in  der  Volker psychologic,  pp.  702  ff. 


RACE   TRAITS  4! 

to  suggestion.  But  the  average  negro  of  the  South, 
like  his  African  forbears,  has  a  very  superficial  ac- 
quaintance with  the  mechanism  of  nature  and  hence 
is  not  stayed  by  the  confidence  in  unchangeable  laws 
that  comes  with  increasing  scientific  knowledge. 
This  ignorance  easily  gives  birth  to  a  belief  in  invisible 
forces  and  supernatural  phenomena  which  is  a  fruit- 
ful soil  for  the  working  of  suggestion.  Hence  the 
large  place  that  charms,  amulets,  witch-doctors, 
and  similar  phenomena  have  always  played  in  the 
h'fe  of  the  negro  both  as  slave  and  freedman.  It  was 
customary  on  some  of  the  plantations  during  slavery 
to  search  the  slaves  regularly  for  charms,  "conjure 
bags,"  and  the  like  and  to  burn  them.  Any  one  famil- 
iar with  negro  life  in  the  "black  belt"  will  find  the 
practice  of  magic  and  milder  forms  of  sorcery  uni- 
versal, though  condemned  by  the  better  informed 
negroes.  A  physician  of  the  Yazoo  Delta  region  of 
Mississippi  described  to  the  writer  a  visit  from  an 
old  negress  who  complained  that  she  had  been  "  cun- 
jured"  and  that  there  was  a  live  lizard  in  her  neck. 
He  tried  to  disabuse  her  mind  of  the  idea,  but  failed 
as  previous  physicians  she  had  consulted  had  failed 
also. 

It  is  in  the  religious  life  that  the  phenomena  of 
suggestion  appear  most  prominently  among  the 
negroes.  Here  occur  those  conditions  of  the  crowd 


42  DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE    FRICTION 

psychosis  that  are  so  favourable  to  suggestion,  for 
the  church  is  the  centre  of  the  social  life  of  the 
negro.  The  traditions  of  African  nature-worship 
with  its  phenomena  of  suggestion  associated  with  sor- 
cery and  witchcraft 1  persisted  among  the  slaves  of 
the  West  Indies  and  of  the  southern  states  and  went 
over  into  the  negro  church,  forming,  according  to  Dr. 
DuBois,  the  sole  connecting  link  of  a  social  nature 
between  the  negro  and  Africa.2  The  negro  church, 
therefore,  which  more  than  any  other  institution  of 
the  negro  has  been  adapted  to  his  genius,  offers  us 
the  richest  field  for  observing  the  phenomena  of  sug- 
gestion. Through  the  harmonising  effect  of  song  and 
particularly  in  the  negro  spirituals 3  heard  at  their 
revivals,  where  the  negro  puts  his  own  music  to  the 
words  and  accompanies  them  with  rhythmical  move- 
ments of  the  body,  as  well  as  in  the  religious  dances,4 
we  have  a  congenial  atmosphere  for  inducing  hypnotic 
conditions.  The  negro  preachers  are  usually  men  of 
vigorous  physique,  rich  emotional  life,  and  intellectual 
ability  above  the  average,  who  understand  as  well  as 

1  Stoll,  op.  cit.,  pp.  275  ff. 

1  DuBois,  "The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications, 
No.  8,  p.  5. 

1  For  examples  of  these  see  Odurn,  "Religious  Folk  Songs  of  the 
Southern  Negroes,"  American  Journal  of  Religious  Psychology,  III, 
pp.  265  ff. 

4  Compare  the  "Rocking  Daniel"  dance  described  by  DuBois, 
op.  cit.,  p.  67. 


RACE   TRAITS  43 

did  their  prototype,  the  African  priest,  how  to  induce 
those  hypnotic  effects  which,  especially  in  revival 
services,  are  looked  upon  as  constituting  the  essence 
of  religion. 

A  typical  instance  of  the  methods  used  and  the 
emotional  and  hypnotic  effects  attained  by  the  negro 
preacher  is  given  by  Professor  Davenport  in  his 
description  of  an  "experience  meetin'"  among  the 
negroes  of  Tennessee.  "At  the  outset  the  interest 
was  not  intense,  and  I  noted  several  colored  people 
on  the  fringe  of  the  crowd  sound  asleep.  Testimony 
flagged  a  little,  and  the  leader  called  for  that  expres- 
sion of  tense  emotional  excitement  known  among  the 
negroes  as  'mourninV  One  speaker  was  flounder- 
ing in  a  weltering  chaos  of  images  and  seemed  likely 
to  sink  without  anybody  to  rescue  him,  when  the 
leader  arose  and  with  animation  on  every  feature 
shouted  to  the  audience,  'Mourn  him  up,  chillun!' 
And  the  audience  began  —  all  except  those  who  were 
asleep  —  at  first  soft  and  low,  but  rising  higher  and 
higher  until  they  fell  into  a  rhythm  that  carried  every- 
thing before  it,  including  the  disciple  who  had  floun- 
dered for  words  in  which  to  shape  his  religious  experi- 
ence. But  he  had  no  trouble  longer.  Images  flashed 
through  his  mind  with  great  rapidity  and  found  quick 
expression  on  his  lips.  He  spoke  in  rhythm  and 
the  audience  rhythmically  responded.  He  was 


44  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

speedily  in  full  movement,  head,  arms,  eyes,  feet,  face, 
and  soon  he  was  lost  in  ecstasy.  And  the  contagion 
swept  everything  before  it.  Even  the  sound  sleepers 
on  the  fringe  of  the  crowd  were  caught  and  carried 
into  the  movement  as  if  by  a  tide  of  the  sea.  At 
the  very  climax  of  the  meeting,  a  woman  rose  to  her 
feet,  moved  forward  to  the  open  space  in  front  of 
the  pulpit,  evidently  under  the  compulsion  of  the 
lyric  wave.  Having  reached  the  front,  in  one  wild 
burst  of  pent-up  emotion,  she  fell  rigid  to  the  floor 
and  lay  there  motionless  during  the  rest  of  the  service. 
Like  the  devotees  of  the  ghost  dance  she  was  believed 
to  be  enjoying  visions  of  the  unseen  world."  1 

Under  the  crowd  psychosis  of  the  church  the  gen- 
eral tendency  of  religion  at  all  times  with  the  negro 
is  to  approximate  the  revival  type  in  which  the 
emotional  phenomena  described  above  are  prominent. 
When  the  meetings  have  progressed  for  days  and 
weeks  as  they  usually  do,  the  congregations  become 
trained,  just  as  do  the  subjects  of  the  travelling 
hypnotists,  so  that  great  extremes  such  as  catalepsy, 
convulsions,  and  similar  phenomena  are  by  no  means 
uncommon.  A  physician  of  the  Yazoo  Delta  region 
of  Mississippi  writes  me  thus  of  the  case  of  a 
negro  woman  which  occurred  during  one  of  these 
revivals.  "She  was  in  a  house  next  the  church.  I 

1  Davenport,  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  pp.  50,  51. 


RACE   TRAITS  45 

found  her  lying  on  the  bed  tossing  her  arms  about 
and  calling  upon  all  the  members  of  the  Godhead  as 
loudly  as  her  voice  would  permit  —  for  she  had  be- 
come so  hoarse  that  the  most  she  could  do  was  to 
whisper.  Upon  investigation  I  found  she  had  been  to 
church  and  the  Holy  Ghost  had  'grabbed'  her 
and  waltzed  her  over  the  church  until  she  'fell  out,' 
from  overheating  presumably.  During  these  spells 
she  gasped  and  gurgled  and  simulated  the  death- 
rattle  so  successfully  that  the  good  sisters  at  her 
bedside  were  scared  nearly  witless."  In  justice  to 
the  negro  it  should  be  observed,  however,  that  these 
extreme  effects  of  the  crowd  psychosis  are  not 
limited  to  the  religious  life  of  the  negro,  but  were 
exceedingly  prominent  in  the  famous  Scotch-Irish 
revivals  of  the  early  days  in  Kentucky.1  They  are 
by  no  means  unknown  at  the  camp-meetings  of  whites 
to-day  in  the  less  progressive  sections  of  the  country. 
It  is  a  menace  to  any  community  to  have  within 
it  a  large  group  endowed  with  strong  instincts  and 
emotions  and  weak  powers  of  inhibition.  This  is 
illustrated  among  those  sections  of  our  white  popula- 
tion where  lynchings  and  night  riding  and  similar  mob 
phenomena  are  in  evidence.2  The  negro  would  be 

1  Davenport,  op.  cit.,  pp.  78  ff. 

2  See  Davenport's  observations  upon  Logan,  Simpson,  and  Todd 
counties  of  Kentucky,  op.  cit.,  pp.  302  ff. 


46  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

a  much  greater  social  menace  but  for  the  fact  that 
he  combines  with  his  passional  and  vacillating  traits, 
just  described,  remarkable  submissiveness  and  lack 
of  group  cohesion.  More  group  self-assertion  on  his 
part  would  make  the  race  problem  tenfold  more  diffi- 
cult than  it  now  is.  When  stronger  group  conscious- 
ness comes  among  the  negroes,  as  it  is  bound  to  come  in 
time,  let  us  hope  that  with  it  will  come  enlightenment 
and  wise  leadership.  The  impatient,  all  but  militant 
and  anti-social  attitude  of  an  influential  section  of 
the  negro  press  is  to  be  condemned  in  this  connection.1 
These  editors  show  an  unfortunate  lack  of  appre- 
ciation of  the  traits  of  the  people  they  aspire  to  lead. 
Their  language  implies  that  the  negro  is  only  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  who  is  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  a  black  skin. 
Such  a  race  philosophy  only  works  injustice  to  the 
negro  himself  and  it  is  high  time  to  discard  it. 

1  See  the  editorial  in  the  negro  journal,  the  New  York  Age, 
March  6,  1913,  also  the  editorial  "Anarchism"  in  the  Crisis  for 
Aug.,  1913. 


CHAPTER  III 
RACE  TRAITS  (continued) 

THE  mobility  of  temperament,  so  characteristic  of 
the  African  negro,1  and  doubtless  a  blessing  in  many 
instances  to  the  slave,2  is  still  exhibited  by  the  negro 
in  other  spheres  than  that  of  religion.  Bruce,  as  a 
result  of  a  study  of  the  negro  in  Southside,  Virginia, 
concluded  that  unguardedness  of  temper  and  a  certain 
superficiality  of  affection  are  among  the  prominent 
traits  of  the  race.3  An  acquaintance  with  the  home 
life  of  the  negro  in  the  far  South  reveals  in  many 
instances  a  recklessness  and  abandon  of  temper  any- 
thing but  conducive  to  conjugal  happiness  and  the 
rearing  of  honest  and  sober  citizens.  The  parent 
easily  flies  into  a  passion  and  accompanies  the  punish- 
ment with  such  extravagant  expressions  as  "I'se 
gwine  to  skin  you  alive  this  time," or  "I'll  wear  you 
to  a  frazzle,"  and  after  the  heat  of  passion  has  spent 
itself  and  it  is  realised  that  the  punishment  has  been 

1  Cureau,  op.  tit.,  pp.  469  ff.  Oetker,  op.  cit.,  pp.  12  ff. 

2  Chambers,   Things  in  America,  p.   280.    See,  however,  Fanny 
Kemble,  Journal,  p.  101. 

1  The  Plantation  Negro  as  Preedman,  Chs.  I,  II. 

47 


48  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

too  severe,  there  is  very  often  a  revulsion  of  feeling 
in  the  other  direction.  The  result  is  that  there  is 
often  too  little  real  permanent  affection  in  many 
family  groups  and  frequently  all  home  ties  cease 
when  the  children  become  independent.1  It  is  in 
these  facts  of  the  home  life  of  the  negro,  as  we  shall 
see  in  a  later  chapter,  that  we  are  to  look  primarily 
for  our  explanation  of  the  high  percentage  of  criminals 
that  the  negroes  furnish ;  it  is  a  familiar  fact  that  in 
the  home  circle  citizens  are  either  made  or  marred. 

This  tropical  exuberance  of  temperament  which 
makes  the  negro  extreme  in  joy  or  grief,  in  anger  or 
affection,  together  with  his  strongly  sensuous  nature 
are  his  greatest  handicaps  in  meeting  the  stern  de- 
mands of  a  stable  civilisation.  They  make  him  an 
alien  in  many  respects  in  the  midst  of  a  highly  ra- 
tionalised social  order.  Furthermore,  they  can  hardly 
be  ascribed  to  his  immaturity,  for  the  negro  is  not  a 
child  race.  Such  traits  are  hereditary,  the  result  of 
ages  of  fixed  group  life.  Hence  they  persist  after 
many  generations  of  contact  with  a  higher  civilisa- 
tion and  after  the  last  vestige  of  social  heritage  from 
Africa  has  disappeared.2  We  are  here  dealing  with 

1  Odum,  Social  and  Menial  Traits  of  the  Negro,  pp.  161  S.    The 
picture  here  drawn  is  not  a  bright  one,  but  it  is  true  of  many  homes  of 
the  plantation  negroes  of  the  South. 

2  Bruce,  op,  cit.,  p.  155. 


RACE   TRAITS  49 

a  fact  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the  understanding 
of  the  negro's  social  and  political  status  and  his  future 
in  this  country.  It  may  be  well,  therefore,  to  indi- 
cate the  psychological  principles  involved. 

We  have  seen  in  the  opening  chapter  that  the 
instincts  together  with  their  emotional  accompani- 
ments are  the  "cosmic  roots"  of  the  social  and  moral 
relations  of  men  just  as  they  are  also  the  basis  of  the 
social  relations  among  gregarious  animals.  In  the 
lower  animals,  however,  these  instincts  function  to 
bring  about  social  relations  only  within  very  definite 
limits,  that  is,  there  are  certain  definite  stimuli  to 
which  definite  instinctive  activities  respond.  These 
stimuli  in  the  case  of  animals  are  all  at  the  level  of 
sense-perception.  It  is  the  sight,  or  sound,  or  smell 
of  the  enemy  that  causes  the  herd  of  cattle  to  run 
together  for  protection.  So  far  as  we  know,  these 
social  instincts  are  not  called  into  play  by  mental 
images;  this  seems  to  be  a  trait  peculiar  to  man 
alone.  In  his  case  the  fundamental  instincts  of 
pugnacity,  sympathy,  sex,  and  the  like  can  be  evoked 
by  the  image  of  the  exciting  object.  Hence  the  richer 
the  store  of  mental  images,  the  richer  the  possibilities 
of  playing  upon  the  emotional  life  associated  with 
these  instincts.  They  are  like  so  many  combinations 
of  key  strokes  for  calling  out  the  rich  tonal  possi- 
bilities of  the  piano.  The  instinctive  basis  for  the 


50  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

aesthetic  emotions  in  the  art  connoisseur  is  not  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  the  savage  or  of  the  child,  but  the 
\J  vastly  richer  store  of  mental  imagery  and  the  com- 
binations and  associations  which  they  have  undergone 
in  his  mind  make  possible  ways  of  initiating  and  blend- 
ing these  emotions  which  the  child  or  savage  cannot 
possibly  have.  In  the  same  way  the  instinctive  basis 
for  the  moral  sentiment  in  the  law-abiding  American 
citizen  and  in  the  African  negro  are  the  same.  The 
former,  however,  through  his  training  in  a  good  home 
and  an  advanced  moral  order,  has  blended  the  first  crude 
images  of  concrete  moral  situations,  on  the  basis  of 
which  child  and  savage  act,  into  comprehensive  moral 
categories  of  the  mind.  Here  the  imaginal  element 
forms  only  the  scheme  or  framework  for  the  general 
concept  which  calls  out  moral  sentiments  and  is  the 
real  sanction  of  moral  conduct.  The  ability  to  grasp 
these  general  ideas,  to  make  them  a  vital  part  of 
individual  standards  of  action  and  to  bring  the  in- 
stinctive nature  to  heel  in  obedience  to  them  is  the 
measure  of  moral  character  and  social  worth. 

It  follows  from  the  above  that  the  enrichment  and 
enlargement  of  the  ideational  life  will  result  not  neces- 
sarily in  the  atrophy,  but  certainly  in  the  control  and 
tempering  of  the  primal  vigour  of  the  emotions.  The 
rationalistic  temperament  is  not  unusually  the  un- 
emotional, while  the  strongly  emotional  thinker 


RACE   TRAITS  51 

tends  to  subordinate  the  relational  and  abstract 
elements  to  the  imaginal.  We  can  understand  this 
from  what  has  been  said,  for  the  image  is  just  one 
remove  from  the  sense-percept  which  was  the  original 
point  of  initiation  for  the  setting  off  of  the  emotions. 
A  vigorous  sense  stimulus,  such  as  a  blow  in  the  face 
or  a  piercing  scream,  will  evoke  the  instinctive  emo- 
tional reaction  of  anger  or  fear  without  our  conscious 
cooperation.  For  the  same  reason  the  vivid  mental 
image  of  the  original  experience  will  tend  to  call  up 
its  emotional  accompaniments.  Hence  the  indi- 
vidual or  group  that  tends  to  do  its  thinking  in  terms 
of  mental  imagery  rather  than  in  general  ideas  will 
be  strongly  emotional  and  perhaps  will  find  logical 
thinking  difficult  from  the  presence  of  the  disturbing 
emotional  elements.  Where  this  peculiarity  has  its 
roots  deep  in  individual  or  racial  temperament  the 
results  are  of  particular  importance  for  the  student 
of  social  problems. 

These  facts  have  an  important  bearing  upon  the 
race  traits  of  the  negro.  Any  one  who  knows  him 
thoroughly  in  his  home  life,  at  his  daily  work,  in  his 
moments  of  intense  religious  excitement  when  more 
than  at  any  other  time  he  lays  bare  his  inmost  soul, 
will  be  convinced  that  a  fundamental  race  trait,  not 
to  be  ignored  in  discussing  any  phase  of  the  negro 
question,  is  that  he  is  imaginal  in  his  thinking  and 


52  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

emotional  in  his  actions.  His  mind  receives  and 
reproduces  external  impressions  with  photographic 
faithfulness,  but  he  is  lacking  in  the  apperceptive 
process  by  which  these  impressions  are  transformed 
and  combined  into  comprehensive  forms  of  thought 
which  may  serve  to  cope  successfully  with  complex 
future  situations.  The  logical  implications  of  past 
experience  are  largely  lost  upon  him  because  he  is 
engrossed  with  the  affective  accompaniments  of  the 
present. 

There  seems  little  doubt  that  the  black  excels  the 


white  in  sheer  strength  of  memory  power.     This  is 
indicated  by  Stetson's  experiments  upon  some  1000 

7  \ 

school  children  of  Washington  equally  divided  be- 
tween  the  whites  and  the  blacks.1  Simple  verses 
from  Eugene  Field  were  read  and  explained  to  groups 
of  20  to  40  children  which  they  repeated  in  concert 
twice.  Each  child  was  then  required  to  repeat  the 
verse  again  in  private  and  the  degree  of  proficiency 
in  reproduction  was  graded  on  a  scale  of  100.  Out 
of  the  four  trials  the  average  of  the  blacks  exceeded 
that  of  the  whites  three  times,  while  in  three  out  of 
the  four  tests  the  blacks  attained  the  highest  indi- 
vidual percentage  of  reproduction.  The  significance 
of  this  test  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that  the  negroes 
of  Washington  are  hardly  typical,  owing  to  the  very 
1  Psychological  Review,  IV,  pp.  285-289. 


RACE   TRAITS  53 

large  element  of  white  blood  and  superior  economic 
and  social  advantages.  Senator  John  T.  Morgan 
of  Alabama  once  remarked  of  the  coloured  population 
of  Washington  that  they  are  the  most  intelligent  and 
progressive  body  of  negroes  to  be  found  anywhere 
in  the  world  and  he  doubtless  did  not  exaggerate  the 
facts.  A  similar  test  upon  the  negroes  of  the  far 
South  might  show  still  greater  dependence  upon 
memory  in  the  mental  processes. 

The  imaginal  character  of  the  negro's  thinking 
may  be  observed  in  their  folklore,  which  Joel  Chandler 
Harris  has  exploited  in  his  "Brer  Rabbit"  tales,  as 
well  as  in  the  allegorical  stories  that  are  improvised 
around  every  negro  fireside.  But  nowhere  does  the 
intimate  relation  between  the  imagery  of  his  thought 
and  his  emotional  life  appear  more  clearly  than  in 
the  songs  and  sermons  and  prayers  of  the  negro  church. 
One  who  listens  to  the  negro  preacher  will  observe 
that  his  hold  upon  his  people  is  not  found  so  much 
in  his  ability  to  develop  a  theme  in  a  logical  fashion 
as  in  the  skill  with  which  through  vivid  imagery  he  is 
able  to  stir  those  powerful  elemental  emotions  that 
lie  at  the  basis  of  the  religious  life. 

The  writer  had  an  opportunity  to  test  this  state- 
ment while  attending  the  services  in  the  negro  churches 
of  Washington.  There  are  in  that  city  several  negro 
churches,  largely  composed  of  intelligent  and  well- 


54  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

to-do  mulattoes,  where  the  service  is  practically 
identical  with  that  of  the  whites  and  where  the  ser- 
mons are  at  a  high  intellectual  level,  with  little  appeal 
to  the  emotions.  The  entire  atmosphere  is  Anglo- 
Saxon,  not  Hegro.  In  the  larger  churches,  that  seem 
most  in  touch  with  the  masses  of  the  negro  population 
and  where  the  preachers  are  often  men  of  education 
and  oratorical  ability,  the  speakers  invariably  get 
their  best  effects  by  impassioned  flights  full  of  vivid 
imagery  which  never  fail  to  elicit  commendation  in 
a  chorus  of  "Amens,"  "Now  you're  preachin', 
brother,"  "Yes,"  "Bless  God,"  "Lord  help  him," 
etc.  We  have  here  evidently  peculiar  manifestations 
of  negro  temperament.  Certain  expressions  or  figures 
of  speech  seem  to  have  the  same  effect  upon  an  audi- 
ence as  a  spark  on  a  powder  magazine,  so  that  a 
congregation  listening  in  comparative  quiet  to  a 
harangue  will  be  thrown  into  a  state  of  the  greatest 
emotional  excitement  at  a  word  or  a  phrase. 

This  evidence  of  being  en  rapport  with  his  hearers 
never  fails  to  react  in  a  stimulating  way  upon  the 
speaker  himself.  In  fact,  the  extreme  readiness  with 
which  a  negro  audience  will  get  in  touch  with  a  speaker 
they  never  heard  before  is  due  primarily  to  this  strong 
emotional  undercurrent  which  inevitably  brings 
preacher  and  hearer  together.  This  is  made  all  the 
easier  by  the  fact  that  the  discourse  is  usually  im- 


RACE   TRAITS  55 

promptu  and  beautifully  oblivious  of  the  laws  of 
logic  or  the  principles  of  exegesis.  Very  often,  where 
the  fountainheads  of  emotion  are  easily  tapped,  as 
during  revival  meetings,  the  sermon  soon  drops  into 
a  sing-song  or  an  approximation  to  musical  recitative, 
where,  through  the  rhythm  of  speech  and  of  swaying 
body,  the  hypnotic  control  of  the  audience  is  gained 
to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made.  There  is 
undoubtedly  much  in  the  negro's  religion  to  condemn, 
as  there  is  also  much  to  admire,  but  one  thing  it  should 
teach  us,  and  that  is  the  folly  of  trying  to  Anglo- 
Saxonise  him  utterly  regardless  of  those  fundamental 
race  characteristics  that  find  such  unmistakable 
expression  in  his  religious  life. 

Still  further  light  is  thrown  upon  the  relation  of 
imagery  to  the  emotions  in  the  aesthetical  nature 
of  the  negro.  It  is  a  familiar  fact  that  music  is  the 
art  par  excellence  that  appeals  to  the  negro.1  This 
is  doubtless  due  to  its  sensuousness.  Music  makes 
its  appeal  immediately  to  elemental  emotions,  while 
the  other  arts,  such  as  painting  and  poetry,  are  more 
presentative  and  require,  therefore,  more  of  the 
ideational  elements  for  their  proper  interpretation. 
The  words  of  the  poet  must  be  thought  before  they 
can  be  felt  and  for  their  proper  mental  assimilation 

1  Kingsley,  Travels  in  West  Africa,  pp.  180  ff.  Dowd,  The  Negro 
Races,  pp.  334  ff. 


56  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

there  must  be  more  or  less  of  the  apperceiving  "men- 
tal fringe"  of  previous  experience  and  knowledge. 
Music  needs  no  such  ideational  intermediaries,  for  it 
seems  to  reach  the  sources  of  the  affective  life  directly 
through  its  sensuous  appeal.  Music  has  also  the 
element  of  rhythm  which  furnishes  scope  for  other 
sensations  of  a  kinaesthetic  order  through  which  the 
emotional  life  may  be  tapped.  This  explains  the 
peculiar  appeal  of  music  to  the  negro.  It  explains 
also  the  peculiar  kind  of  music  through  which  the 
negro  soul  finds  its  most  satisfactory  expression. 
One  can  notice,  even  in  large  city  churches,  that  the 
mass  of  the  congregation  sings  poorly  the  most  of  the 
standard  church  hymns,  as  is  shown  in  the  lagging  of 
the  time  and  the  lack  of  spirit.  On  the  other  hand 
the  chants  and  recitatives  which  are  akin  to  the  negro 
"spirituals"  are  sung  with  genuine  devotion  and 
beautiful  intonation.  In  these  latter  it  is  the  rhythm 
rather  than  the  ideas  which  makes  the  appeal.  In 
general,  it  is  not  the  words  of  the  hymns,  but  rather 
the  sensuous  effect  of  the  music  that  is  the  source  of 
emotional  stimulus. 

The  instincts  of  the  negro  are  not  essentially  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  other  races,  but  it  is  possible 
here  to  note  certain  minor  differentiations  produced 
doubtless  through  natural  selection  in  the  past  history 
of  the  race.  Reference  has  been  made  to  the  develop- 


RACE   TRAIT?  57 

ment  of  the  powerful  sex-instinct  and  the  effect  it  has 
had  upon  the  mental  life  of  the  negro.  The  usual 
contention  is  that  the  high  rate  of  mortality  in  Africa, 
owing  to  wars,  slave  raids,  disease,  unsanitary  con- 
ditions, and  ignorance,  together  with  a  debilitating 
tropical  climate,  has  made  necessary  a  high  birth-rate 
for  the  survival  of  a  group.  Natural  selection  has 
therefore  in  the  course  of  thousands  of  years  developed 
a  race  in  which  the  procreative  instinct  is  exception- 
ally strong.1  Ellis,  speaking  of  the  negroes  of  the  Slave 
Coast  of  West  Africa,  says,  "In  early  life  they  evince 
a  degree  of  intelligence,  which,  compared  with  that  of 
the  European  child,  appears  precocious;  and  they 
acquire  knowledge  with  facility  till  they  arrive  at  the 
age  of  puberty,  when  the  physical  nature  masters  the  in- 
tellect, and  frequently  completely  deadens  it. " 2  Like- 
wise Cureau,  who  enjoyed  exceptional  opportunities  for 
studying  the  African  negro,  distinguishes  two  stages 
in  the  individual's  development.  The  negro  child  is 
"amiable,  gen  tie,  graceful,  "with  a  quick  and  yet  docile 
spirit.  "It  shows  itself  to  be  very  precocious,  more 
so  certainly  than  the  majority  of  European  children. 
It  comprehends  and  assimilates  without  trouble  all 

1  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  The  Negro  in  the  New  World,  p.  22.  Wolt- 
mann,  Politische  Anthropologie,  pp.  250  ff.  Tillinghast,  The  Negro  in 
Africa  and  America,  pp.  64  ff. 

"  Ellis,  The  Ewe-Speaking  Peoples  of  the  Slave  Coast  of  West  Africa, 
pp.  9,  10. 


e;8  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

^ 

that  is  shown  it.  It  takes  part  early  in  the  family 
life.  ...  At  puberty  everything  changes.  There 
vis  a  sudden  stoppage  of  development,  even  a  sort  of 
retrogression."  The  mentality  of  the  African  negro, 
according  to  this  writer,  makes  little  advance  after 
the  access  of  puberty.  The  forms  of  western  civilisa- 
tion which  he  may  assume  remain  only  a  veneer,  which 
covers  over,  without  modifying,  the  heredity  traits.1 
On  the  supposition  of  the  essential  identity  of  the 
American  negro  in  race  traits  with  his  African  forbears 
similar  assertions  are  made  as  to  the  injurious  effects 
of  the  powerful  sex  instinct  upon  his  intellectual  and 
moral  development.  Johnston  asserts  that  the  negro 
has  a  harder  fight  to  master  sexual  lust  than  either 
Caucasian  or  Mongolian.2  It  must  be  confessed  that 
there  are  many  facts  of  the  negro's  life  in  the  new 
world,  both  during  slavery  and  in  freedom,  which 
would  seem  to  imply  that  an  unusually  strong  develop- 
ment of  the  procreative  impulse  is  a  race  characteristic. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  general  consensus  of  opinion 
among  physicians  practising  among  negroes  as  to  the 
strength  of  the  sex  impulse  and  the  consequent 
prevalence  of  venereal  diseases.  Weatherford  states 
of  the  southern  negro :  "I  have  taken  pains  to  ques- 

1  Dr.  Cureau, "  Psychologic  des  races  nfigres  de  1'Afrique  tropicale," 
Revue  Gtnerde  des  Sciences,  XV,  pp.  684,  685. 

*  Op.  tit.,  p.  22.  Similar  ideas  in  Tillinghast,  op.  cit.,  p.  65. 


RACE   TRAITS  59 

tion  a  great  many  Christian  physicians,  both  white  and 
colored,  about  the  prevalence  of  gonorrhea  among  ne- 
groes, and  most  of  them  put  the  percentage  among  the 
men  at  ninety-five  out  of  every  hundred.  Some  of  the 
colored  physicians  have  put  it  higher  than  that."1 
Personal  inquiry  by  the  writer  among  physicians  in  the 
"black  belt"  goes  to  confirm  this  statement.  Statis- 
tics show  in  the  large  cities  a  high  percentage  of  deaths 
from  diseases  that  imply  laxity  of  sexual  life.  Similar 
conditions  are  found  among  the  West  Indian  negroes, 
where,  according  to  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  "syphilis  is 
still  answerable  for  terrible  ravages  amongst  the  coast 
and  town  population."2  Memphis  from  1882-1885 
showed  a  coloured  death-rate  from  syphilis  205.8  per 
cent  greater  than  the  whites,  while  from  1891-1897  the 
excess  was  298  per  cent.  In  other  cities,  such  as 
Atlanta  and  Charleston,  the  percentage  of  excess  over 
the  white  was  even  greater,  amounting  in  the  latter 
city  at  one  time  to  883. 33. 3 

The  percentage  of  illegitimate  births  in  cities  such 
as  Baltimore  and  Washington  among  negroes  who 
belong,  on  the  average,  to  a  better  class  than  those  of 
the  cities  of  the  far  South  points  unmistakably  in  the 

1  Negro  Life  in  the  South,  p.  78. 

2  The  Negro  in  the  New  World,  p.  195. 

*  "Social  and  Physical  Conditions  of  Negroes  in  Cities,"  Atlanta 
University  Publications,  No.  2,  p.  23,  see  Appendix  B. 


60  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

same  direction.  The  percentage  of  excess  of  illegiti- 
mate births  among  the  negroes  over  those  among  the 
whites  for  the  city  of  Baltimore  from  1884  to  1889 
was  776.9,  and  from  1889  to  1893,  650.4.1  In  Wash- 
ington during  the  period  1879-1894  the  average 
illegitimacy  for  the  coloured  population  was  22.94 
per  cent  of  all  births,  while  that  for  the  white  was  2.92 
per  cent.  In  this  city  the  educational,  religious,  and 
economic  opportunities  of  the  coloured  race  are  not  to 
be  surpassed  anywhere  in  the  world.8  y 

It  would  seem,  furthermore,  from  the  last  report  of 
the  health  officer  for  the  District  of  Columbia,  that  con- 
ditions in  the  matter  of  illegitimacy  have  not  materially 
improved,  notwithstanding  these  advantages .  The  A  n- 
nual  Report  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1911,  states,  p.  9  : 
"An  analysis  of  the  returns  of  births  and  still  births  for 
the  past  five  years  reveals  some  appalling  figures  with 
respect  to  illegitimacy."  The  report  gives  per  1000 
of  corresponding  population  .4  for  the  whites  and  5.9 
for  the  coloured,  the  latter  exceeding  the  former  more 
than  fourteen  times  !  Out  of  a  population  of  250,803 
whites  there  were,  in  1910,  93  illegitimate  births, 
while  from  a  coloured  population  of  97,657  there  were 

1  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  2,  p.  23,  see  Appendix  B. 
1  Hoffman,  Race  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the  American  Negro, 
PP-  235.  237- 


RACE  TRAITS  •  6l 

559  illegitimate  births  registered.  In  the  case  of  the 
city  of  Washington  and  other  large  cities  the  argu- 
ment from  environment  which  has  been  so  often 
advanced  in  defence  of  the  negro  in  the  far  South 
loses  much  of  its  force.  We  are  constrained  to  fall 
back  upon  the  theory  that  we  liave  here  facts  which 
can  only  be  explained  in  terms  of  a  strong  race  instinct. 
The  vigour  of  this  instinct  may,  under  the  restraints  of 
modern  civilisation,  prove  a  handicap  to  the  negro. 
It  is  not  necessarily  a  mark  of  inherent  racial  inferi- 
ority, however,  for  with  proper  restraint  and  direction 
it  may  prove  a  race  asset  in  view  of  the  fundamental 
part  played  by  this  instinct  in  some  of  the  loftiest 
forms  of  civilisation,  namely,  art  and  religion.1 

The  attempt  has  been  made  to  ignore  or  discount 
the  effect  of  race  heredity  by  attributing  to  slavery  the 
negro's  laxity  in  sex  relations.  The  study  of  "The 
Negro  American  Family"  in  TJie  Atlanta  University 
Publications,  No.  13,  is  not  free  from  this  error, 
although  purporting  to  be  a  strictly  scientific  investi- 
gation. The  impression  made  is  that  slavery  broke 
up  ancestral  customs  of  the  African  negro  home  of  a 
high  order  and  substituted  a  condition  of  complete 
moral  laxity.  It  is  granted  that  "  the  point  where  the 
Negro  American  is  furthest  behind  modern  civilisa- 
tion is  in  his  sexual  mores.  ...  All  this,  however, 

1  Starbuck,  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  207. 


62  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

is  to  be  expected.  This  is  what  slavery  meant,  and 
no  amount  of  kindliness  in  individual  owners  could 
save  the  system  from  its  deadly  work  of  disintegrat- 
ing the  ancient  Negro  home  and  putting  but  a  poor 
substitute  for  its  place."1  Again,  to  the  same  effect, 
"sexual  immorality  is  probably  the  greatest  single 
plague  spot  among  Negro  Americans,  and  its  greatest 
cause  is  slavery  and  the  present  utter  disregard  of  the 
black  woman's  virtue  and  self-respect  both  in  law  court 
and  custom  in  the  South."2  This  is  surprising  to  one 
who  has  any  acquaintance  with  the  sex  mores  of  the 
African  negro.  Among  the  Tshi  negroes  of  the  Gold 
Coast,  "modesty  is  a  term  which  is  untranslatable 
into  Tshi,"  says  Ellis,  "and  the  notion  would  be 
regarded  as  ridiculous.  .  .  .  Chastity  per  se  is  not 
understood.  An  unmarried  girl  is  expected  to  be 
chaste  because  virginity  possesses  a  marketable 
value." 3  When  it  is  lost,  she  suffers  a  depreciation  in 
market  value,  but  not  at  all  in  social  standing.  Polyg- 
amy is  universal  and,  according  to  Miss  Kingsley,  "is 
the  institution  which,  above  all  others,  governs  the 
daily  life  of  the  native."4  The  grossest  sexual  indul- 
gence is  made  part  of  religious  worship.5 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  37.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  41. 

1  Ellis,  The  Tshi-S  peaking  Peoples  of  the  Gold  Coast  of  West  Africa, 
p.  286. 

4  Travels  in  West  Africa,  p.  212. 
6  Ellis,  op.  cit.,  pp.  121,  122. 


RACE   TRAITS  63 

When  the  worst  has  been  said  of  the  abuse  by  white 
masters  of  their  power  and  of  the  unscrupulousness  of 
slave  breeding  and  the  inevitable  laxity  of  marital 
relations  among  slaves,  we  are  still  far  above  the  level 
of  society  indicated  by  the  experience  of  the  African 
traveller  DuChaillu,  who  was  continually  embarrassed 
by  chiefs  offering  him  their  wives  according  to  stand- 
ing rules  of  hospitality.  His  refusal  stirred  no  other 
sentiment  among  the  royal  ladies  themselves  "than  a 
kind  of  chagrin  at  their  rejection  by  the  white  guest." 1 
The  very  fact  that  the  above  mentioned  abuses  of 
slavery  were  condemned  by  the  better  sentiment  of 
the  slaveholders,  while  the  slaves  themselves  were 
brought  constantly  under  the  higher  sanctions  of 
Christian  monogamic  marriage,  reveals  the  gap  be- 
tween the  status  of  the  slave  and  that  of  the  African,  a  j 
gap  as  wide  as  that  between  savagery  and  civilisation. 

Were  slavery  responsible  for  the  laxity  of  the  sex 
mores  of  the  negro,  we  would  expect  illegitimacy  to 
increase  as  we  get  farther  back  toward  slavery.  On 
the  contrary  the  statistics  show  a  percentage  of  in- 
crease as  we  get  farther  away  from  slavery  days. 
Thus  the  amount  of  illegitimacy  among  the  negro 
births  in  Washington  at  the  close  of  the  seventies  was 
about  1 8  per  cent.  From  that  time  on  we  note  a 
steady  increase  until  1899,  when  the  high  watermark 

1  DuChaillu,  A  Journey  to  Ashango-land,  p.  76. 


64  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

was  reached  of  27.6  per  cent.  It  may  be  seriously 
doubted  whether  the  percentage  of  illegitimacy  upon 
the  average  slave  plantation  was  much  above  that  of 
the  negroes  of  Washington  for  1910,  namely,  22.1  per 
cent,  or  more  than  one  out  of  every  five  births l ! 
Livingstone  says  of  Jamaican  conditions,2  "illegiti- 
macy is  the  open  sore  of  Jamaica,  and  no  healthy 
progress  can  be  made  until  it  is  healed."  The  first 
registration  of  births  in  1878  showed  59.3  per  cent 
illegitimate,  while  in  1885  the  percentage  was  59.9 
per  cent,  and  in  parts  of  the  island  72  per  cent.  The 
increase  of  illegitimacy  among  Jamaican  negroes 
under  freedom  parallels  the  facts  cited  above.  This 
indicates  that  we  are  to  look  for  other  causes  than 
slavery  to  account  for  the  facts.  These  are,  first, 
the  sudden  removal  of  restraints  and  the  inevitable 
drop  in  morals  incident  to  the  negro  making  totally 
new  social  adjustments  and,  secondly,  his  excessive 
instinct  of  sex.  The  removal  of  the  restraints  of 
slavery  gave  to  this  impulse  free  rein. 

The  instinct  of  pugnacity,  in  contradistinction  to 
that  of  sex,  is  not  so  strong  in  the  negro  as  in  some 
other  races  such  as  the  Anglo-Saxon.  It  has  often 
been  asserted  that  the  dominant  trait  of  the  negro 

1  See  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioners  of  the  District  of  Columbia 
for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1911,  p.  9. 
J  Black  Jamaica,  pp.  113,  254. 


RACE   TRAITS  65 

is  submissiveness.1  Because  of  a  docile  and  elastic 
temperament  which  has  been  called  "the  highest 
natural  gift  of  the  Negro  race,"2  it  survived  in  the 
competition  with  a  strenuous  and  imperious  race 
where  the  less  yielding  Indian  has  disappeared. 

The  lax  social  organization  of  the  tribes  of  Africa 
and  the  demoralising  effects  of  centuries  of  slave  trade 
as  well  as  the  entire  economic  and  social  life  of  the 
African  negro  have  not  tended  towards  the  develop- 
ment of  the  combative  instinct.  For  its  higher 
rationalised  forms  it  demands  a  stage  of  society  far 
enough  progressed  to  secure  the  cooperation  of  in- 
dividuals through  the  subordination  of  their  own 
impulses  to  the  good  of  the  group.3  Especially  does 
long  standing  group  rivalry  tend  to  develop  in  the 
members  of  the  groups  that  survive  those  powers  for 
social  cooperation  which  are  necessary  for  effective 
group  action  such  as  the  instinct  of  pugnacity.  The 
ancestors  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  have  probably  under- 
gone a  rigorous  military  selection  as  the  result  of  group 
rivalry  which  emphasised  the  combative  instinct  to 
an  extent  almost  without  a  parallel.4  It  still  is  felt 
most  powerfully  in  our  modern  civilisation  though 

1  Riley,  The  White  Man's  Burden,  pp.  78  ff. 

2  Baker,  Following  the  Color  Line,  p.  161. 

3  McDougall,  Social  Psychology,  pp.  286  ff. 

4  Kidd,  Principles  of  Western  Civilization,  pp.  156  ff.,  English  ed. 


66  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

now  more  in  the  modified  and  civilised  form  of  emu- 
lation. It  appears  in  education,  in  business,  in  poli- 
tics, in  art,  and  even  in  religion.  "Nine-tenths  of 
the  work  of  the  world,"  says  Professor  James,  "is 
done  by  it."  l 

The  litigiousness  of  the  ancient  Roman  and  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  are  illustrations  of  the  forms  this  com- 
bative instinct  takes  where  a  people  have  become 
highly  civilised.  It  crops  out  in  its  most  modern 
form  perhaps  in  the  mania  for  athletic  contests.  It 
is  the  instinctive  basis  upon  which  has  been  slowly 
evolved  the  Anglo-Saxon  conception  of  justice. 
Where  strong  combative  instincts  make  the  social 
tension  high  and  individuals  and  groups  are  bent  upon 
contesting  their  rights  to  the  utmost,  we  have  a  con- 
genial atmosphere  for  the  development  of  a  high  sense 
of  justice  through  rational  interpretation  and  adjust- 
ment of  the  interests  involved. 

/*""~ 

Into   this   high-strung,   militant,   and   thoroughly 

rationalised  civilisation  of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  with  his 
heritage  of  laws  and  institutions  evolved  through 
centuries  of  struggle  and  presupposing  the  fighting 
spirit,  the  negro  was  thrust,  against  his  will,  and  with 
instincts  developed  in  a  social,  economic,  and  political 
setting  totally  different  from  that  of  the  white. 
Deficient  in  the  instinct  for  group  organisation  with  a 
1  Psychology,  II,  409. 


RACE   TRAITS  67 

view  to  defence,  he  has  never  been  a  match  for  the 
white,  even  with  everything  in  his  favour,  as  the  issue 
of  the  struggle  between  the  Ku-Klux  Klan  and  the 
Union  League  of  Reconstruction  days  showed.  He  is 
handicapped,  furthermore,  by  his  inability  to  find  his 
way  through  the  maze  of  bewildering  legal  refinements 
and  complex  system  of  rights  which  are  totally  foreign 
to  the  negro  race  genius.  Among  these,  however,  the 
white  feels  himself  entirely  at  home,  for  they  are  the 
legacy  of  his  fathers,  the  expression  of  his  group  con- 
sciousness, and,  therefore,  the  natural  battle-ground 
for  the  bloodless  gratification  of  his  pugnacious  instincts. 
No  doubt  the  spirit  of  his  race  spoke  through  Pro- 
fessor Kelly  Miller  when  he  contrasted  the  "intol- 
erant Teuton"  and  his  militant  individualism,  Puritan 
ethics,  and  exclusive  race  pride,  with  the  "amiable 
African"  and  his  peaceful  communism,  his  latitudi- 
narian  ethics,  and  almost  entire  absence  of  race  pride.1 
The  failure  of  the  negro  as  a  social  organiser  or  where 
group  cohesion  is  involved  is  apparently  the  more 
remarkable  in  view  of  his  gregariousness.  However, 
it  is  not  the  gregarious  or  socially  sympathetic  peoples 
that  have  been  the  most  successful  in  creating  social 
institutions.  The  Veddahs  of  Ceylon  show  more 
pronounced  gregarious  instincts  than  either  the  an- 

1  "The  Modern  Land  of  Goshen,"  Southern  Workman,  Vol.  29, 
pp.  601-607. 


68  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

cient  Roman  or  the  modern  Englishman,  but  as  social 
architects  they  cannot  be  compared  with  these  empire 
builders.1  Much  of  the  shrewdness  and  mother  wit 
of  the  negro  and  his  remarkable  ability  in  reading 
character  and  in  interpreting  the  minds  of  others  is 
due  to  his  highly  developed  social  nature.  It,  to- 
gether with  his  submissiveness,  explains  his  excellence 
as  a  slave,  particularly  in  the  more  intimate  relations 
of  body-servant,  where  his  keen  sympathies  enabled 
him  to  anticipate  his  master's  wish  almost  before  its 
expression.2  For  this  reason  also  the  isolation  and 
individualism  of  the  country,  except  in  thickly  popu- 
lated sections,  such  as  in  parts  of  the  "black  belt,"  do 
not  attract  the  negro  as  much  as  the  gregarious  life  of 
the  town.8  The  gradual  segregation  and  concentration 
of  the  coloured  population  which  is  taking  place  not 
only  in  the  larger  cities,  but  also  throughout  the  coun- 
try regions  is  due  primarily  to  the  negro's  strong  love 
of  his  kind.4  The  pronounced  gregariousness  of  the 
negro  and  the  consequent  tendency  to  seek  the  sanc- 
tions for  conduct  in  the  larger  and  laxer  sphere  of 

1  Ross,  Social  Control,  p.  9. 

*  Bruce,  The  Plantation  Negro  as  Freeman,  pp.  147,  148. 

1  "It  is  the  lack  of  social  life  that  tends  to  depopulate  the  rural 
black  belt  and  does  draw  off  its  best  blood."  Atlanta  University 
Publications,  No.  13,  p.  130. 

*  Brooks,  "A  Local  Study  of  the  Race  Problem,"  Political  Science 
Quarterly,  Vol.  26,  pp.  193-221. 


RACE  TRAITS  69 

casual  social  contacts  rather  than  in  rational  individual 
interpretations  of  moral  issues  throws  some  light  upon 
the  latitudinarian  ethics  of  the  negro  and  his  amazing 
lack  as  a  class  of  a  sense  of  personal  moral  responsibil- 
ity. 

There  are  countless  other  innate  differences  between 
white  and  black  as  well  as  between  other  races,  perhaps 
even  between  peoples  and  nations,  less  marked  than 
those  just  mentioned.  They  are  far  too  subtle  ever  to 
be  included  in  any  system  of  anthropometries  or  caught 
by  the  processes  of  the  psychological  laboratory,  and 
yet  they  exert,  by  reason  of  their  persistence  and  un- 
changeable character,  an  influence  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance in  the  shaping  of  national  cultures  and  tradi- 
tions. They  are  to  be  traced  ultimately,  no  doubt,  to 
slight  differentiations  in  racial  stocks  due  to  their  hav- 
ing been  exposed  to  different  selective  agencies.  We 
sum  them  up  under  the  vague  terms  of  "tempera- 
ment" or  "race  traits."  1 

While  individual  temperament  functions  in  the  life 
of  the  individual  as  such,  race  temperament  appears 
most  clearly  where  groups  of  the  same  race  are  thrown 
together.  The  differences  between  the  crowd  psy- 
chosis as  one  sees  it  on  the  streets  of  London,  Paris, 
Berlin,  or  Naples  will  illustrate  what  is  meant.  For 

1  See  FouillSe,  Esquisse  psychologique  des  Peuples  EuropSens; 
also  Temperament  et  Caractere,  pp.  323  ff. 


70  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

this  reason  also  the  race  genius  of  the  negro  is  nowhere 
exhibited  so  unmistakably  as  in  church  gatherings,  pic- 
nics, or  in  the  garrulous,  good-natured  throngs  that  meet 
the  trains  at  the  stations  of  the  small  towns  in  the 
"black  belt  "of  the  South.  The  racial  factor  is  usually 
a  negligible  quantity  in  the  isolated  individual.  The 
background  out  of  which  it  arises  is  social,  and  hence 
it  is  in  phenomena  of  group  behaviour  that  it  finds 
expression  under  the  stimulus  of  suggestion  and  the 
crowd  psychosis.  It  must  be  observed  that  it  attains 
its  highest  pitch  in  the  clash  of  racially  divergent 
groups.  Where  there  is  complete  ethnic  homogeneity 
these  penchants  primordiaux  of  race  are  not  realised 
for  the  same  reason  that  the  man  adrift  in  the  Gulf 
Stream  in  mid  ocean  is  not  aware  of  it.  Where 
groups  of  widely  different  racial  heredity  are  brought 
into  close  contact  friction  arises  of  an  intensity  that 
often  menaces  the  integrity  of  the  social  order  itself, 
as  is  illustrated  by  the  race  conflicts  in  Austria,  in 
South  Africa,  and  in  the  southern  states. 

We  can  hardly  overemphasise  the  importance  of 
this  connection  between  race-feeling  and  group-rela- 
tions for  the  understanding  of  the  race  question. 
The  citizen  of  Paris  or  perhaps  of  Boston  cannot 
comprehend  the  so-called  "race  prejudice"  against  the 
negro  and  condemns  it  most  severely.  Usually,  how- 
ever, when  forced  by  circumstances  to  live  for  some 


RACE   TRAITS  71 

time  in  communities  where 'the  blacks  are  numerous, 
such  critics  undergo  a  profound  change  of  mind. 
They  become  aware  of  these  subtle  race  differences 
where  they  are  strongly  accentuated  through  the 
presence  of  large  numbers  of  individuals  of  similar 
race  traditions  and  heredity  —  differences  they  fail 
entirely  to  note  in  the  isolated  individual.  There  is 
little  doubt  that  the  radical  change  of  attitude  in  the 
North  toward  the  negro  which  has  taken  place  within 
the  last  few  years  is  due  in  large  measure  to  the 
presence  in  centres  such  as  Philadelphia,  New  York, 
Chicago,  and  even  in  Boston  of  large  negro  groups 
which  have  brought  the  whites  of  the  North  to  realise 
these  race  differences  in  a  way  impossible  through  con- 
tact with  scattered  individuals.1 

One  other  remark  may  be  made  in  this  connection, 
although  we  shall  return  to  this  point  later,  and  that  is 
the  close  connection  between  race-feeling  and  race  or 
group  persistence.  It  is  not  difficult  to  show  that  the 
forms  of  race-feeling,  or  esprit  de  corps,  that  char- 
acterise all  the  various  gregarious  insects  and  animals, 
are  differentiations  of  the  social  instincts  produced 
by  natural  selection.  They  are  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance for  the  preservation  of  the  integrity  of  the 

1  Facts  in  support  of  this  statement  can  be  found  in  Baker, 
Following  the  Color  Line,  pp.  216  ff.  See  also  Ovington,  Half  a 
Man. 


72  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

group  and  are  forerunners  of  race-feeling  as  we  find 
it  among  men.1  Giddings  sees  in  this  group  "con- 
sciousness of  kind"  the  original  and  the  ultimate 
ground  of  all  social  integrations  from  the  lowest  to  r 
the  highest.2  That  we  should  act  differently  toward 
those  whom  we  feel  to  be  different  from  us  is  instinc- 
tive and  natural. 

We  may  not,  therefore,  lightly  ignore  or  overrule 
what  nature  has  implanted  in  us  with  such  infinite 
pains  without  running  the  risk  of  eliminating  that 
element  which  has  made  group  progress  possible 
in  the  past  and  which  alone  guarantees  group  integrity 
for  the  future.  The  races  that  have  been  the  torch- 
bearers  of  civilisation  have  almost  without  exception 
manifested  strong  race  pride,  and  it  could  easily 
be  proven  that  their  achievements  were  because 
of  rather  than  in  spite  of  race-feeling.  There  is  no 
better  illustration  than  the  course  of  civilisation  in  the 
western  hemisphere.  The  Portuguese  and  Span- 
iards have  peopled  the  countries  to  the  south  with 
half-breeds,  while  the  English  stock  to  the  north 
refuse  to  mingle  its  blood  with  the  Indian.  "The 
net  result  is  that  North  America  from  the  Behring 
Sea  to  the  Rio  Grande  is  dedicated  to  the  highest 
type  of  civilisation;  while  for  centuries  the  rest  of 

1  Woltmann,  op.  cit.,  pp.  256  ff. 
1  Principles  of  Sociology,  p.  17. 


RACE  TRAITS  73 

our  hemisphere  will  drag  the  ball  and  chain  of  hy- 
bridism."1 

Summing  up  the  results  of  the  analysis  of  the  race 
traits  of  the  negro,  we  assert  that  facts  tend  to  show 
not  so  much  racial  inferiority  as  fundamental  racial 
differences.  Racial  differences,  as  they  have  mani- 
fested themselves  in  standards  of  morals  and  group 
behaviour  under  peculiar  conditions  of  environment, 
have  been  so  striking  often  as  to  be  mistaken  for 
evidences  of  hereditary  mental  and  moral  inferiority. 
That  racial  differences  do  exist  may  be  inferred 
from  our  knowledge  of  the  psychophysical  organism 
which  leads  us  to  expect  psychic  differences  where 
we  find  physiological  differences.  In  the  case  of  the 
negro  these  have  not  yet  been  scientifically  determined, 
but. there  is  every  indication  that  in  time  they  will 
be.  Furthermore,  the  effect  of  natural  selection 
operating  upon  a  group  of  human  beings  for  thou- 
sands of  years  in  a  peculiar  physical  environment, 
such  as  we  find  in  the  habitat  of  the  negro  in  Africa, 
would  lead  us  to  expect  variations  in  his  fundamental 
instincts  and  impulses  corresponding  to  those  condi- 
tions. After  every  allowance  has  been  made  for  the 
effect  of  the  social  heritage  and  for  the  generally 
acknowledged  similarity  of  all  mankind,  so  far  as 

1  Ross,  "The  Causes  of  Race  Superiority,"  Annals  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  Vol.  18,  p.  85. 


74 

general  mental  characteristics  are  concerned,  there  is 
still  left  in  the  case  of  the  negro,  as  in  the  case  of  other 
races,  a  residue  of  racial  traits  that  must  be  looked 
upon  as  peculiar  to  him. 

These  differences  are  found  only  at  the  lower  level 
of  instinct,  impulse,  and  temperament,  and  do  not, 
therefore,  admit  of  clear  definition  because  they  are 
overlaid  in  the  case  of  every  individual  with  a  mental 
superstructure  gotten  from  the  social  heritage  which 
may  vary  widely  in  the  case  of  members  of  the  same 
race.  That  they  do  persist,  however,  is  evidenced  in 
the  case  of  the  negroes  subjected  to  the  very  different 
types  of  civilisation  in  Haiti,  San  Domingo,  the  United 
States,  and  Jamaica.  In  each  of  these  cases  a  com- 
plete break  has  been  made  with  the  social  traditions 
of  Africa  and  different  civilisations  have  been  sub- 
stituted, and  yet  in  temperament  and  character  the 
negro  in  all  these  countries  is  essentially  the  same. 
The  so-called  "reversion  to  type"  often  pointed  out  in 
the  negro  is  in  reality  but  the  recrudescence  of  funda- 
mental unchanged  race  traits  upon  the  partial  break- 
down of  the  social  heritage  or  the  negro's  failure  suc- 
cessfully to  appropriate  it.1 

When  the  question  is  raised  as  to  whether  these 

1  Sir  H.  H.  Johnston,  The  Negro  in  the  New  World,  p.  194.  Hoff- 
man, Race  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the  American  Negro,  pp.  327  ff. 
Tillinghast,  The  Negro  in  Africa  and  America,  pp.  226  ff. 


RACE   TRAITS  75 

hereditary  racial  differences  of  the  negro  brand  him  as 
inferior  or  as  incapable  of  assimilating  the  civilisa- 
tion of  the  white  to  the  extent  demanded  for  the 
highest  social  efficiency  there  is  the  greatest  discrep- 
ancy of  opinion.  The  personal  and  racial  equations 
have  made  it  all  but  impoisible  for  men  to  arrive  at 
anything  like  unanimity  of  opinion.  It  must  be 
confessed,  however,  that  the  uncritical  humanitarian- 
ism  of  the  last  generation  has  given  place  to  a  saner  and 
more  scientific  attitude.  The  facts  as  accumulated 
by  the  work  of  the  patient  and  unprejudiced  students 
of  this  our  greatest  social  problem  have  effected  a 
slow  but  radical  change  in  public  sentiment.  Pro- 
fessor Hart,  in  his  recent  work,  The  Southern  South, 
based  upon  first-hand  knowledge  of  southern  condi- 
tions, closes  the  chapter  on  "Negro  Character"  with 
this  statement:  "Race  measured  by  race,  the  Negro 
is  inferior,  and  his  past  history  in  Africa  and  in 
America  leads  to  the  belief  that  he  will  remain  inferior 
in  race  stamina  and  race  achievement."  Mr.  H.  H. 
Bancroft,  in  his  last  work,  Retrospection,  pp.  369-374, 
is  even  harsher  in  his  judgment.  "As  an  American 
citizen  he  is  a  monstrosity.  ...  He  is  too  incom- 
petent and  unreliable  for  any  use ;  as  a  citizen  of  the 
commonwealth  he  is  an  unmitigated  nuisance,  and 
judging  from  the  past  he  will  so  remain.  ...  He 
depends  upon  the  white  man  to  do  his  mental  work, 


76  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

his  thinking  and  managing  for  him,  preferring  him- 
self only  to  serve.  He  is  by  nature  and  habit  a  ser- 
vant, not  alone  because  of  his  long  period  of  enslave- 
ment, but  because  of  his  mental  inferiority."  These 
are  the  conclusions  of  scholars,  reared  in  a  thoroughly 
abolition  atmosphere,  who  have  devoted  their  lives 
to  the  study  of  our  national  life  and  institutions. 

The  pronouncement  of  Mr.  Bancroft  is  evidently 
unjust  and  finds  its  effectual  refutation  in  the  ever 
increasing  number  of  negroes  who  are  acquiring  prop- 
erty and  education  and  who,  in  spite  of  the  handicap 
of  race  antipathy,  are  measuring  up  to  the  demands  of 
citizenship  in  a  democracy.  The  half  century  that 
has  elapsed  since  emancipation  is  too  short  a  time 
upon  which  to  base  a  final  judgment  as  to  the  fate  of 
the  negro  as  a  group.  He  is  just  now  successfully 
emerging  from  the  handicaps  of  sectional  prejudices 
and  political  charlatanry.  The  school  that  once 
preached  his  salvation  through  rights  and  those  not 
of  his  own  realisation,  but  rather  the  gift  of  the 
nation,  is  in  a  diminishing  minority.  The  dominant 
note  at  present  is  that  of  critical  aloofness  and  a 
manifest  determination  to  test  all  claims  to  rights 
and  privileges  in  terms  of  proven  worth  and  social 
and  economic  efficiency.  The  negro  is  on  trial  and 
the  issue  is  largely  in  his  own  hands. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  NEGRO  AND  HIS  SOCIAL  HERITAGE 

IT  may  have  been  inferred  perhaps  from  what  has 
been  said  as  to  the  large  part  played  by  instinct, 
mental  imagery,  and  the  emotions  in  the  life  of  the 
average  negro  that  his  rational  powers  are  inferior 
or  at  least  immature  and  that  he  is  thereby  in- 
capacitated as  a  group  for  the  attainment  of  that 
measure  of  efficiency  demanded  by  American  democ- 
racy. As  a  matter  of  fact  the  stock  criticism  that 
has  been  passed  upon  the  American  negro  as  well  as 
upon  his  African  forbears  is  that  he  is  inferior  in  the 
higher  reasoning  powers.  Commenting  upon  the 
mechanical  nature  of  the  African  negro's  thinking, 
Miss  Kingsley  writes,  "Watch  a  gang  of  boat-boys 
getting  a  surf  boat  down  a  sandy  beach.  They  turn 
it  broadside  on  to  the  direction  in  which  they  wish  it 
to  go,  and  then  turn  it  bodily  over  and  over,  with 
structure-straining  bumps  to  the  boat,  and  any 
amount  of  advice  and  recriminatory  observations  to 
each  other.  Unless  under  white  direction,  they  will 
not  make  a  slip,  nor  will  they  put  rollers  under  her."1 

1  Travels  in  West  Africa,  pp.  669,  670. 
77 


78  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

Similar  chuckle-headedness  was  noted  repeatedly  by 
Olmsted  among  the  slaves,  and  he  saw  in  their  me- 
chanical inefliciency  and  the  consequent  costliness  of 
slave  labour  the  explanation  of  the  industrial  retrogres- 
sion of  the  South.1  Professor  Keane,  quoting  Ellis  and 
Binger,  asserts  the  intellectual  inferiority  of  the 
negro  and  connects  it  with  the  early  closing  of  the 
cranial  sutures,  which  prevents  the  further  develop- 
ment of  the  higher  ideational  centres.2  According  to 
Ratzel,  however,  the  intellectual  powers  of  the  negro 
are  not  inherently  inferior,  but  are  undeveloped.3 

Apart  from  the  question  of  immaturity  of  mental 
powers,  it  is  fairly  certain  that  were  the  masses  of  the 
negroes  of  the  South  subjected  to  tests  similar  to 
those  applied  by  a  psychologist  to  one  negro  boy 
with  common  school  training,  the  results  would  be 
very  much  the  same.4  It  was  found  that  his  thinking 
was  almost  entirely  in  terms  of  images  and,  while 
his  powers  of  observation  were  keen  and  accurate, 
words  implying  relational  and  conceptual  elements, 
such  as  "disobedience,"  had  for  him  very  little  exact 
significance.  The  investigator's  explanation  of  this 

1  Seaboard  Slave  States,  I,  pp.  48-50,  113,  163,  381. 
1  Keane,  Ethnology,  pp.  44,  265.     See  also  Ellis,  Ewe-Speaking 
Peoples,  pp.  9,  10.  Binger,  Du  Niger  au  Golfe  de  Guinee,  p.  246. 

3  History  of  Mankind,  II,  p.  326. 

4  Anna  Tolman  Smith,  "A  Study  in  Race  Psychology,"  Popular 
Science  Monthly,  pp.  354-360,  Vol.  50. 


THE   NEGRO  AND  HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  79 

is  significant.  "Speech  is  a  power  that  comes  to 
most  of  us  unconsciously,  and  the  first  stages  of  read- 
ing  require  little  more  than  the  visual  recognition 
of  signs  that  stand  for  familiar  things.  But,  this  stage 
passed,  every  word  is  a  generalisation,  back  of  which 
lie  traditions,  customs,  experiences,  sentiments,  and 
ideas  which  are  the  heritage  of  the  race.  They  are 
the  stuff  of  the  mind  transmitted  from  generation  to 
generation  through  the  myriad  channels  of  family, 
of  social,  of  school,  of  church,  and  of  business  life.  It 
is  obvious  that  to  a  race  wanting  in  our  own  expe- 
riences a  large  part  of  our  vocabulary  must  be  mean- 
ingless."1 

An  excellent  test,  then,  of  the  thoroughness  of  the 
social  integration  of  an  individual  or  group  is  the 
extent  to  which  the  social  heritage  in  the  form  of 
language  has  been  accurately  and  thoroughly 
mastered.  An  axiom  of  conduct,  a  principle  of 
economics  or  politics,  a  law  of  science,  a  rubric  of  art, 
or  a  dogma  of  religion,  takes  on  a  fixed  and  permanent 
form  in  the  consciousness  of  the  group  through  lan- 
guage, but  the  individual  must,  be  able  to  enter  into 
the  life  of  the  group  and  think  the  social  judgments 
which  language  embodies  before  he  can  really  share 
in  their  inner  meaning.  Hence  the  mere  mastery 
of  the  auditory  or  visual  percept  or  image  of  the  word, 
1  Op.  dt.,  p.  359. 


80  DEMOCRACY   AND  RACE   FRICTION 

so  characteristic  of  the  negro,  does  not  imply  that  he 
has  entered  into  the  mental  process  of  which  this 
word  is  a  symbol.  The  very  perfection  of  the  Eng- 
lish tongue  and  the  richly  varied  racial  experience  and 
achievement  it  embodies  are  a  serious  stumbling- 
block  to  the  negro.  For  a  language  expresses  the  most 
intimate  thought  and  feeling  of  a  people ;  it  is  the 
spontaneous  outcome  of  the  group  life.  The  negro  is, 
therefore,  born  heir  to  forms  of  speech  back  of  which 
lie  race  traditions  differing  widely  from  his  own; 
Yet  his  deepest  feelings  and  aspirations  and  his  racial 
temperament  must  in  some  way  find  expression 
through  this  medium.  His  social  consciousness  must 
conform  at  least  externally  to  the  ideas,  the  conven- 
tionalities, and  social  traditions  which  it  embodies. 
He  has  no  other  social  heritage,  no  other  social  setting 
for  the  unfolding  of  selfhood.  Therefore,  before 
we  hastily  condemn  the  negro  as  mentally  inferior 
because  of  his  alleged  inability  as  a  class  to  enter  at 
once  and  readily  into  the  social  heritage  of  the  white, 
we  ought  to  see  if  there  are  not  other  handicaps 
from  which  he  suffers. 

That  the  negro  as  a  class  has  not  yet  succeeded 
in  assimilating  the  civilisation  of  the  white  will  be 
generally  acknowledged.  Some  appreciation  of  the 
difficulties  involved  may  be  gained  from  the  expe- 
riences of  the  missionaries  and  teachers  in  their  attempt 


THE   NEGRO  AND  HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  8l 

to  bring  western  civilisation  to  the  African  negro. 
The  problem  is  somewhat  different,  owing  to  the  fact 
that  the  maturest  products  of  western  civilisation, 
namely,  religious  and  ethical  ideals,  are  brougKt  to  a 


they  have  created,  customs  embodying  ethical  and  */l&/SvM? 

religious  conceptions  shaped  by  their  past  group  life. 

_~31 


people  already  living  in  the  midst  of  customs  which 

_> 

^J*\ 
i/2 

The  message  of  the  western  teacher  must  be  interpreted 

*       V***^        »•* 

by  the  African  negro  in  terms  of  his  own  social  expe- 
rience. This  is  made  exceedingly  difficult  by  the  gap 
between  western  civilisation  and  that  of  the  savage 
and  by  the  fact  that  the  social  heritage  of  the  savage 
is  omnipresent,  bearing  directly  and  constantly  upon 
his  life  at  every  point,  whereas  the  social  setting  for 
the  ideas  of  the  teacher  is  lacking  or  must  be  more  or 
less  artificially  created. 

Human  nature  and  fundamental  psychic  char- 
acteristics are  the  same  with  the  African  as  with  the 
Occidental,  but  because  of  a  totally  different  social 
setting  the  ideas  are  different.  The  customs  and 
traditions  of  the  Christian  home,  that  tend  to  refine 
and  socialise  the  sex  instinct  in  western  civilisation, 
are  lacking  in  the  life  of  the  savage.  Hence  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  love,  and  the  very  language  of  the 
savage  often  is  lacking  in  terms  of  endearment.1 
The  property  instinct  is  present  in  the  savage,  but 

1  Letourneau,  Psychologic  Ethnique,  p.  113. 
o 


82  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

in  the  absence  of  a  vast  economic  system  with  in- 
numerable rights  and  privileges,  to  which  the  western 
child  is  born  heir  and  in  the  midst  of  which  his  prop- 
erty instinct  develops,  we  need  not  be  surprised  at 
the  prevalence  of  theft  and  deceit  among  the  savages. 
Honesty  and  chastity  are  not  innate.  They  are 
forms  of  conduct,  checks  upon  impulse  and  instinct, 
which  have  been  evolved  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the 
social  situation  in  a  highly  civilised  society.  In  the 
same  way  it  might  be  shown  that  the  loftiest  and  most 
comprehensive  conceptions  of  the  group,  such  as  that 
of  the  deity,  are  social  outcomes.  In  so  far  as  they 
are  the  products  of  group  experience  they  will  be 
found  to  be  a  function  of  the  stage  of  social  organisa- 
tion to  which  the  group  has  attained. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  the  African  negro  is 
the  low  forms  of  social  organisation,  the  lack  of  indus- 
trial and  political  cooperation,  and  consequently 
the  almost  entire  absence  of  social  and  national  self- 
consciousness.1  This  rather  than  intellectual  in- 
feriority explains  the  lack  of  social  sympathy,  the 
presence  of  such  barbarous  institutions  as  cannibalism 
and  slavery,  the  low  position  of  woman,  inefficiency 
in  the  industrial  and  mechanical  arts,2  the  low  type 

1  Reinsch,  "The Negro  Race  and  European  Civilization,"  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  XI,  p.  155. 

1  "Unless  under  white  direction  the  African  has  never  made  an 


THE   NEGRO  AND   HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  83 

of  group  morals,  rudimentary  art-sense,  lack  of  race 
pride  and  self-assertiveness,  and  an  intellectual  and 
religious  life  largely  synonymous  with  fetichism  and 
sorcery. 

In  such  a  social  setting  it  is  absurd  to  expect  all 
those  -civic  virtues  to  flourish  which  we  esteem  so 
highly,  namely,  thrift,  industry,  honesty,  fortitude, 
patient  perseverance  in  pursuit  of  a  distant  end. 
"Truth  for  the  negro,"  says  Cureau,  "is  not  a  unique 
and  objective  entity,  independent  of  subjective  inter- 
pretations; it  is  preeminently  many  and  subjective. 
His  mobile  spirit,  the  victim  of  each  passing  whim, 
transforms  it  unwittingly  according  to  his  needs. 
He  quickly  accepts  a  new  version  and  believes  in  the 
reality  of  his  own  fictions.  For  this  reason  the  testi- 
mony of  a  negro  in  court  is  worthless,  a  fact  that  makes 
futile  the  application  of  our  legal  procedure  in  the  col- 
ony of  tropical  Africa." l  Virtues  exist  only  as 
forms  of  a  highly  rationalised  group  life  and  demand 
as  their  background  a  mature  industrial,  social,  and 
political  order.  Where  this  is  lacking  virtue  ceases 
to  be  more  than  a  name. 

The  criticisms  of  the  African  missionaries  because 

even  fourteenth-rate  piece  of  cloth,  or  pottery  or  a  machine,  tool, 
picture,  sculpture  ...  he  has  never  even  risen  to  the  level  of  picture- 
writing."  Kingsley,  Travels  in  West  Africa,  p.  670. 

1  "Psychologic  des  races  negres  de  PAfrique  tropicale,"  Rdvuc 
Generate  des  Sciences,  XV,  p.  679. 


84  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

of  their  ignorance  of  this  vital  connection  between  the 
ethical,  religious,  or  artistic  ideals  of  a  civilisation  and 
its  material  background  offer  an  interesting  parallel 
to  the  criticisms  of  the  missionaries  to  the  freed- 
men  during  Reconstruction  in  the  South.  Oetker's 
complaint,  that  the  negroes  of  the  German  colonies 
take  on  at  the  hands  of  missionaries  the  superficial 
veneer  of  a  foreign  civilisation  with  which  they  are 
not  in  vital  relation  and  are  thereby  made  "lazier, 
more  untrustworthy,  more  dishonourable  and  unruly 
than  the  other  negroes"  who  have  not  been  "con- 
verted," sounds  very  like  the  criticisms  of  the  "new 
negro"  of  the  South  who  was  more  or  less  the  product 
of  Reconstruction  methods.1 

For  the  same  reasons  Cureau,  in  view  of  the 
exceedingly  simple  and  imperfectly  developed  social 
order  back  of  the  language  of  the  African  negro,  finds 
amusing  the  contentions  of  the  missionaries  that  they 
have  discovered  in  native  idioms  the  equivalents  of 
such  terms  as  "glorify,"  "discipline,"  "compunc- 
tion," "college,"  "intimidate,"  "consubstantial," 
and  the  like.  They  have  even  attempted  to  trans- 
late into  Kitke  the  Gospel  of  John,  the  mysticism  of 
which  is  difficult  enough  of  comprehension  for  culti- 
vated intellects.2 

1  Die  Neger-Sede  und  die  Deutschen  in  Afrika,  p.  24. 
»  Op.  tit.,  XV,  p.  639. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  85 

Miss  Kingsley's  observations  on  conditions  in  West 
Africa1  might  be  applied  directly  to  conditions  in  the 
South.  The  negro,  she  states,  has  "fallen  under  that 
deadly  spell  worked  by  so  many  of  the  white  men  on 
so  many  of  the  blacks  —  the  idea  that  it  is  the  correct 
and  proper  thing  not  to  work  with  your  own  hands, 
but  to  get  some  underling  to  do  that  sort  of  thing 
for  you  while  you  read  and  write.  ...  He  sees  the 
white  man  is  the  ruling  man,  rich,  powerful,  and 
honored,  and  so  he  imitates  him,  and  goes  to  the  mission 
school  classes  to  read  and  write,  and  as  soon  as  an 
African  learns  to  read  and  write  he  turns  into  a  clerk. 
Now  there  is  no  immediate  use  for  clerks  in  Africa, 
certainly  no  room  for  further  development  in  this  line 
of  goods.  What  Africa  wants  at  present,  and  will 
want  for  the  next  200  years  at  least,  are  workers, 
planters,  plantation  hands,  miners,  and  seamen."  2 

The  absence  of  higher  social  consciousness  observed 
in  the  African  negro  is  responsible  more  than  any- 
thing else  for  those  weaknesses  of  the  American 
negro  which  have  subjected  him  to  such  severe  criti- 
cism. He  occupies,  to  be  sure,  a  social  and  intel- 
lectual plane  much  higher  than  that  of  his  African 
cousins.  There  is  an  increasing  number  of  negroes, 

1  Travels  in  West  Africa,  p.  671. 

1  See  in  this  connection  the  interesting  article  by  a  Kroo  negro, 
Dihdwo  Twe,  "A  Message  from  Africa,"  American  Journal  of  Reli- 
gious Psychology,  II,  pp.  295-306. 


86  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

for  the  most  part  of  mixed  blood,  that  are  entering 
more  and  more  into  their  social  heritage  and  as  a 
result  are  developing  those  civic  virtues  required  by 
our  standards  of  civilisation.  But  a  number,  perhaps 
the  majority,  of  American  negroes  do  not  yet  share 
in  any  intimate  and  vital  sense  in  those  higher  ideals 
of  the  community  which  are  the  measure  of  values  in 
the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  springs  of  action 
for  the  social  will. 

There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  very  important  sense  in  which 
the  social  heritage  of  both  white  and  black  is  indi- 
visible. It  has  been  well  said,  "just  as  the  negro 
shares  in  the  uses  of  every  paved  street,  of  every  well- 
constructed  country  road,  of  every  railroad,  of  every 
public  utility  of  every  sort,  —  facilities  chiefly  de- 
manded and  supported  by  the  commerce  and  inter- 
course of  the  stronger  race,  —  so  he  enters,  however 
humbly  or  indirectly,  into  the  heritage  of  every  intel- 
lectual and  moral  asset  of  the  country."  1  The  subtle 
social  forces,  such  as  imitation  and  suggestion,  form 
the  mediums  for  more  or  less  unconscious  transmission 
of  "social  copy"  from  one  racial  group  to  the  other. 
This  will  be  clearer  if  we  develop  some  of  the  im- 
plications of  the  A: — -"'v»  of  the  opening  chapter. 

The  social  self  c  :omplete  personality  was  found 
to  be  the  result  of  aal's  assimilation  of  accu- 

1  E.  G.  Murp  '  of  Ascendency,  p.  12. 


THE   NEGRO  AND   HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  87 

mulated  group  experience.  Personality  develops  out 
of  imitative  activity  of  the  individual  in  contact  with 
his  fellows  in  the  various  relations  of  the  family,  the 
school,  the  office,  the  church,  the  club,  or  the  party. 
In  the  larger  sense  it  includes  the  imitative  absorption 
of  the  highest  spiritual  and  moral  ideals  of  the  group. 
These  ideals  are  themselves  the  result  of  social  activi- 
ties. Hence  the  character  of  the  individual  will  depend 
upon  the  occupations  and  activities  of  the  group  of 
which  he  is  a  member,  and  in  whose  activities  he 

• 

shares.  The  object  of  the  nursery  with  which  the 
child  comes  in  familiar  contact,  such  as  the  chair, 
takes  on  definite  meaning  in  his  mind  directly  in  terms 
of  the  physical  relations  that  he  sustains  to  it  as  a 
result  of  handling  it,  pushing  it,  sitting  in  it,  or  falling 
out  of  it.  The  percept  or  mental  image  or,  finally, 
the  concept  chair  will  be  a  function  of  these  concrete 
relations  and  experiences.  The  " apperceiving  mass" 
that  grows  up  in  the  child's  mind  in  connection  with 
this  object  constitutes  a  scheme  or  pattern  of  his 
thinking  in  so  far  as  his  thought  is  conditioned  by 
chairs.  In  the  same  way,  though  in  a  much  broader 
sense,  the  occupations  of  the  individual  or  the  group 
to  which  he  belongs  bring  about  in  time  a  "structural 
organization  of  mental  traits."  1 

This  may  be  clearly  observed  in  primitive  forms  of 
1  Dewey,  Psychological  Review,  IX,  p.  220. 


88  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

society.  The  hunting,  pastoral,  trading,  or  military 
forms  of  social  activity  develop  psychoses  or  mental 
types  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  which  are  deter- 
mined by  each  of  these  activities.  Dowd  has  made 
this  fact  the  basis  of  his  sociological  study  of  the  negro 
races  of  Africa  and  on  the  strength  of  economic  and 
political  differences  between  the  millet,  the  cattle,  the 
banana,  and  the  camel  zones  has  essayed  an  analysis 
of  the  psychological  traits  of  the  various  peoples 
included  in  each  of  these  zones.1  The  hunting 
psychosis  has  just  those  characteristics  which  we 
would  expect  from  that  form  of  activity,  namely, 
skill,  ingenuity,  courage  of  the  impulsive  sort,  vigor- 
ous emotional  life  and  also  lack  of  perseverance  or  plan, 
improvidence,  and  low  forms  of  social  organisation. 
The  centre  of  interest  lies  in  the  immediate  present. 
On  the  other  hand  more  complex  occupations,  such  as 
agriculture  or  trading,  require  reflection  and  division 
of  labour,  complexity  of  detail  and  technical  methods 
where  in  time  the  end  sought,  such  as  food  or  clothing, 
is  lost  sight  of  in  the  complicated  process  of  attaining 
it.  As  a  result  we  have  a  much  more  rationalised 
and  socialised  group. 

The  drift  of  civilisation,  therefore,  has  ever  been 
away  from  the  immediate,  passional,  and  unreflective 
life  of  the  savage  toward  a  social  order  the  nexus  of 

1  Dowd,  The  Negro  Races,  Chs.  XXXIV-XXXIX. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  89 

which  is  rational  rather  than  emotional  or  instinctive. 
Complex  and  doubtful  situations  call  for  the  use  of 
varied  means  for  the  attainment  of  distant  ends.  Con- 
sequently the  substitution  of  impersonal  ideals  for  the 
immediate  and  the  concrete  satisfactions  of  desire 
is  characteristic  of  all  higher  forms  of  civilisation. 
The  tendency  of  social  evolution  in  the  past  and  at 
present  is  to  favour  groups  in  which  the  inhibition  of 
impulse  and  desire  through  the  dictates  of  reason 
makes  possible  extensive  social  cooperation  and  the 
rational  direction  of  the  forces  of  nature  in  the  interest 
of  higher  and  more  spiritual  ends.1 

This  is  particularly  true  of  the  descendants  of  the 
long-headed,  unruly,  and  aggressive  Teuton,  who, 
in  spite  of  his  blood-letting  instincts,  has  proven  him- 
self the  greatest  social  organiser  of  modern  times.  His 
political  and  industrial  creations  are  not  due  to  sym- 
pathy for  his  fellows,  in  which  he  is  surpassed  by  the 
Latin  peoples,  nor  to  his  sociableness,  for  he  is  strongly 
individualistic.  They  are  the  result  of  voluntary 
associations  of  groups  of  men  for  the  attainment  of 
carefully  thought  out  ends.  Not  immediate  personal 
relations  so  much  as  interests  which  are  so  compre- 
hensive in  their  nature  as  to  admit  only  of  statement 
in  abstract  terms  are  the  basis  of  larger  group  rela- 

1  Schallmayer,  Vererbung  und  Auslese  im  Lebenslauf  der  Volker, 
p.  154.  Also  Dewey,  op.  cit.,  pp.  229,  230. 


90  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

tions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  The  modern  industrial 
combinations,  with  their  impersonal  and  coldly  ra- 
tional character,  the  so-called  "soulless  corporations," 
are  typical  examples  of  the  Teutonic  genius  for  social 
organisation.1 

The  handicap  of  the  negro  in  his  effort  to  enter  into 
the  group  ideals  or  "  structural  organisation  of  mental 
traits,"  which  are  the  pattern  or  scheme  resulting  from 
the  complex  industrial,  political,  and  social  activities 
of  the  white,  is  twofold.  It  is  primarily  racial.  The 
negro  is  by  nature  highly  gregarious.  He  is  apt, 
therefore,  to  find  the  essence  of  the  social  situation 
in  the  immediate  satisfaction  of  his  gregarious  in- 
stincts. He  feels  no  need  to  interpret  group  relations 
and  interests  in  terms  of  highly  rationalised  and 
distant  ends.  These  demand  for  their  accomplish- 
ment not  only  patience  and  self-denial  and  the 
mastery  of  technical  details  but  often  for  the  time 
being  conflict  and  social  friction,  which  may  prevent 
the  immediate  gratification  of  his  gregarious  impulses. 
He  has  never  yet,  even  in  those  situations  where  he 
has  had  entire  freedom  to  go  his  own  way,  as  in  Haiti 
and  San  Domingo,  evolved  a  social  order  in  which 
loyalty  to  those  abstract  ideals  that  lie  at  the  basis 
of  modern  political  institutions  has  been  able  per- 
manently to  hold  its  own  against  the  bent  of  racial 
1  Ross,  Social  Control,  pp.  3,  10,  and  passim. 


THE   NEGRO  AND  HIS  SOCIAL  HERITAGE  91 

heredity  and  the  dictates  of  blind  passion.  He 
should  not  be  too  severely  censured,  however,  since 
the  course  of  events  over  which  he  had  no  control 
forced  him  to  make  the  transition  from  savagery  to 
civilisation  by  a  short-cut,  while  all  other  peoples 
have  enjoyed  the  disciplinary  advantages  of  travelling 
a  much  longer  road.  A  plant  may  be  hot-housed  into 
bearing  a  bloom  before  the  stem  and  root  are  strong 
enough  for  its  proper  support  and  nourishment. 

In  the  second  place,  a  more  immediate  and  serious 
handicap  to  the  negro's  assimilation  of  his  social 
heritage  is  found  in  his  exclusion  from  those  voca- 
tional activities  which  are  indispensable,  in  the  light 
of  what  has  been  said,  to  his  attainment  of  selfhood 
in  the  highest  sense.  The  essence  of  human  life,  as 
Aristotle  long  ago  observed,  consists  in  the  exercise  of 
functions,  in  activity.  Thinking  and  feeling  are  con- 
ditioned primarily  by  conduct.  The  mental  life 
depends  both  for  its  structure  and  meaning  upon 
action.  "A  process  or  method  of  life,"  says  Professor 
Veblen,  "once  understood,  assimilated  in  thought, 
works  into  the  scheme  of  life  and  becomes  a  norm  of 
conduct,  simply  because  the  thinking,  knowing  agent 
is  also  the  acting  agent."  1  The  richer,  the  more 
varied  and  intense  the  activity  of  the  individual  or 

1  The  Instinct  of  Workmanship  and  the  Irksomeness  of  Labor,". 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  IV,  p.  195. 


92  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

the  group,  the  greater  the  possibilities  of  attainment 
for  the  self  at  the  higher  level.  It  is  a  notorious  fact, 
however,  that  the  masses  of  the  negroes  are  engaged 
in  industrial  occupations  of  a  lower  order,  such  as  that 
of  the  farmer  or  the  day-labourer.  This  will,  of 
course,  condition  the  texture  of  the  group  mind  as 
well  as  that  of  the  individual.  In  the  great  agricul- 
tural areas  of  the  South  the  poverty-stricken  nature  of 
the  negro's  intellectual  life  may  be  inferred  from  the 
isolation  and  monotonous  simplicity  of  his  daily  round. 
This  is  still  further  accentuated  by  other  economic 
conditions,  namely,  the  fact  that  the  negro  is,  in  the 
majority  of  cases,  a  renter  or  crop  sharer.  He  often 
owns  neither  the  land  nor  the  tools  nor  the  house  he 
occupies,  so  that  the  larger  possibilities  of  social 
integration  and  training  in  moral  responsibility 
through  property  owning  are  lost.  "Until  there  is 
industrial  independence,"  says  Booker  Washington, 
"it  is  hardly  possible  to  have  good  living  and  a  pure 
ballot  in  country  districts.  .  .  .  Where  so  large  a 
proportion  of  a  people  are  dependent,  live  in  other 
people's  homes,  eat  other  people's  food,  and  wear 
clothes  they  have  not  paid  for,  it  is  pretty  hard  to 
expect  them  to  live  fairly  and  vote  honestly."  1  One 
of  the  most  hopeful  signs  of  negro  life  in  the  South  is 
the  increasing  number  of  blacks  that  are  acquiring 
1  Future  of  the  American  Negro,  p.  38. 


THE   NEGRO   AND  HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  93 

property.  Without  the  socially  educating  and  socially 
integrating  effect  of  property,  education  through 
books  alone  will  remain  barren  and  artificial  or  degen- 
erate into  a  gospel  of  dangerous  discontent. 

There  are  other  causes,  however,  that  are  also 
responsible  for  the  negro's  failure  to  enter  upon  his 
social  heritage.  One  of  these  at  least  is  to  be  found 
not  so  much  in  present  conditions  as  in  the  mistakes 
of  the  past.  Doubtless  the  disastrous  blunders  of 
Reconstruction  have  been,  on  the  whole,  the  greatest 
hindrance  to  the  advancement  of  the  negro,  espe- 
cially in  the  South.  It  is  a  peculiarly  dangerous  period 
in  the  life  of  any  individual  or  group  when  a  total 
transformation  takes  pace  in  old  habits  or  customs 
under  which  social  values  and  criteria  of  conduct  have 
been  formed  in  the  past.1  This  was  peculiarly  true 
of  the  negro  at  emancipation.  Under  the  old  regime 
racial  and  economic  forces  determined  his  slave  status 
so  that  he  was  only  admitted  to  any  part  in  the 
social  heritage  of  the  white  with  this  presupposition. 
The  slave  shared  the  ideals  of  the  master  very  much 
as  the  child  shares  those  of  the  family  circle.  They 
became  his  unconsciously  through  imitative  absorp- 

1  Thomas  uses  the  term  "crisis"  to  describe  these  situations,  Source 
Book  for  Social  Origins,  pp.  13  ff.  See  also  Thomas'  stimulating 
article,  "Race  Psychology,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  XVII, 
pp.  725-775. 


94  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

tion.  They  were  not  made  the  basis  of  acts  of  free 
choice,  the  expressions  of  free,  untrammelled,  and, 
therefore,  morally  responsible  personality. 

With  emancipation  this  was  entirely  changed. 
The  old  forms  of  social  control  under  slavery  that 
presupposed  the  restraining  influence  of  another's 
will  were  abruptly  exchanged  for  the  utterly  untried 
and  uncomprehended  sanctions  of  a  freeman  in  the 
'  most  advanced  form  of  democracy.  Congress  re- 
jected the  system  of  apprenticeships  devised  by  the 
different  slave  states  in  the  "black  codes."  These 
were  designed  to  aid  both  white  and  black  to  bridge 
the  chasm  between  the  old  and  the  new  by  providing 
a  social  and  economic  setting  in  which  enough  of  the 
old  order  was  preserved  to  prevent  complete  social 
disintegration.  At  the  same  time  they  provided  a 
training  school  for  the  maturing  of  habits  that  would 
enable  the  black  to  meet  his  duties  as  a  freeman  with- 
out injury  to  himself  or  society.  The  "black  codes" 
were  quickly  suppressed,  and  the  ten  fearful  years  of 
bayonet  rule  that  followed  did  much  to  destroy  the 
tie  of  affection  and  mutual  understanding  that  existed 
between  slave  and  master.  With  it  went  the  best 
asset  the  ex-slave  had  in  his  unequal  struggle  for  a 
place  hi  the  social  heritage  of  the  white. 

These  precious  years,  when  the  black  should  have 
been  building  up  habits  of  thrift  and  winning  for  him- 


THE   NEGRO  AND  HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  95 

self  an  independent  place  in  the  social  order,  were 
spent  by  him  as  a  "moral  holiday."  When  the 
South  once  more  gained  home  rule,  the  negro  found 
himself  in  stern  competition  with  a  social  group 
solidified  by  the  bitter  struggle  for  race  supremacy  and 
race  integrity  and  grudgingly  admitting  him  to  any 
part  or  lot  in  the  civilisation  of  their  fathers.  For  this 
unfortunate  outcome  the  negro  cannot  be  blamed. 
Booker  Washington  is  doubtless  correct  in  saying, 
"I  hardly  believe  that  any  race  of  people  with  similar 
preparation  and  similar  surroundings  would  have 
acted  more  wisely  or  very  differently  from  the  way  the 
negro  acted  during  the  period  of  reconstruction." 
This  same  writer,  however,  frankly  admits  that  "it 
would  have  been  better,  from  any  point  of  view,  if  the 
native  Southern  white  man  had  taken  the  Negro,  at 
the  beginning  of  his  freedom,  into  his  political  confi- 
dence, and  exercised  an  influence  and  control  over  him 
before  his  political  affections  were  alienated."  1 

A  striking  parallel  is  found  between  the  emancipated 
negro  and  the  emancipated  serfs  of  Russia.2  As  a 
result  of  the  process  of  social  selection  that  followed 
emancipation  we  can  note  in  both  cases  the  begin- 
nings of  individual  and  class  differentiations  not 
noticed  under  slavery.  The  more  intelligent  and 

1  The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,  p.  n. 

2  Wallace,  Russia,  Ch.  XXXI,  "The  Emancipated  Peasantry." 


96  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

industrious  met  the  "crisis"  successfully,  while  many 
others,  freed  from  the  restraints  of  the  old  order, 
showed  evidences  of  retrogression.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  many  negroes  after  emancipation  dropped 
to  a  lower  level  than  that  of  the  best  elements  of  the 
race  in  Africa.1  Many  have  not  yet  recovered  from 
the  disastrous  shock  of  social  readjustment,  and  drift 
helpless  and  aimless,  for  in  reality  they  have  no  social 
heritage  that  they  can  really  call  their  own.  Nomi- 
nally the  negro  is  born  heir  to  the  lofty  moral  tradi- 
tions, the  august  rights  and  dignities  of  a  noble  civili- 
sation. Yet  the  negro  wastrels  that  crowd  the  police 
courts  of  all  our  large  cities  and  furnish  far  and  away 
the  highest  percentage  of  criminals  seem,  more  than 
any  other  section  of  our  population,  a  sort  of  social 
flotsam  and  jetsam  easily  caught  in  the  teddies  of 
our  tense  national  life  because  they  are  out  of  touch 
entirely  with  the  social  currents  that  make  for  prog- 
ress and  moral  uplift. 

In  the  process  of  assimilation  of  the  social  heritage 
by  the  individual  a  most  important  part  is  played 
by  imitation.  Some  have  found  in  imitation  the  very 
essence  of  human  society.2  The  warp  and  woof  of 
the  mature  individual  character  is  composed  of "  copy  " 

1  Thomas,  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  XVII,  p.   738.    See 
also  Boas,  The  Mind  of  Primitive  Man,  pp.  270  ff. 
*  Tarde,  Laws  of  Imitation,  p.  50. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  97 

which  has  been  taken  over  from  various  sources  and  re- 
interpreted in  terms  of  subjective  feelings  and  acted 
out  in  life.  The  process  by  which  this  takes  place 
is  essentially  imitative.  We  may  distinguish,  how- 
ever, varying  degrees  of  imitation.  At  the  lowest 
level  is  unconscious  or  plastic  imitation,  to  be  ob- 
served in  the  tendency  of  members  of  a  subordinate 
group  to  take  on  the  physical  traits  of  the  dominant 
type,  especially  in  facial  expression.  As  a  result  of 
this,  the  human  face  becomes  "a  kind  of  epitome  of 
society"  in  which  family  training,  the  esprit  de  corps 
of  party  or  sect,  the  influence  of  an  institution,  the 
dogma  of  a  theological  school,  or  even  the  more  in- 
tangible Zeitgeist  may  be  traced.  It  has  been  said 
that  if  we  would  get  real  insight  into  the  times  of 
Henry  the  Eighth,  we  should  study  the  portraits  of 
Holbein.1  Imitation  at  higher  levels  is  essentially 
rational  and  deals  with  ideas.  Even  here,  however, 
we  must  distinguish  between  the  artificial  and  external 
assimilation  of  forms  and  symbols  and  rational  imita- 
tion or  the  imitative  assimilation  of  the  thought 
content. 

From  what  we  have  seen  of  the  highly  suggestive 
and  gregarious  nature  of  the  negro  it  is  to  be  expected 
that  he  would  be  very  imitative.  Attention  has 
indeed  been  frequently  called  to  this  trait  in  the 

1  Cooley,  The  Social  Organism,  p.  66. 

H 


98  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

African  negro.1  It  was  noted  of  him  as  a  slave.  It 
is  also  characteristic  of  the  negro  as  freedman,  and  it 
has  stood  him  in  good  stead  in  view  of  the  immediate 
necessity  of  assimilating  to  some  degree  the  social  heri- 
tage of  the  white.  But,  as  was  to  be  expected  in 
view  of  the  difference  in  cultural  levels,  this  imitation 
has  been  external  and  reproductive  rather  than  as- 
similative and  rational.  The  negro  has  imitated  the 
forms  and  symbols  of  the  white's  culture  too  often 
rather  than  its  spirit  and  intent.  This  is  especially 
to  be  observed  in  matters  of  dress  and  fashion,  con- 
ventions, customs,  and  the  like,  for  these  external  social 
forms  lend  themselves  especially  to  reproductive 
imitation.  Most  striking  in  this  connection  is  the 
imitation  of  the  straight  hair  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  by 
the  negro.  The  columns  of  negro  newspapers  from 
Massachusetts  to  Texas  are  full  of  advertisements  of 
"anti-kink"  nostrums  accompanied  by  illustrations 
of  heads  of  long  flowing  hair.  There  is  no  dombt  that 
like  nostrums  for  bleaching  the  skin  would  appear  also 
were  there  any  hope  of  success.  This  slavish  imitation 
of  the  white,  even  to  the  attempted  obliteration  of 
physical  characteristics,  such  as  woolly  hair,  is  almost 

1  Oetker,  Die  Neger-Seele  und  die  Deutschen  in  Afrika,  pp.  16,  22. 
See  also  Archive  fur  Rassen-  und  Gesellschafts-Biologie,  VI,  p.  383, 
quoting  Forel,  International  Monthly,  1901,  Vol.  IV,  p.  196,  and 
Cureau,  op.  cit.,  p.  685. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE  99 

pathetic  and  exceedingly  significant  as  indicating 
the  absence  of  feelings  of  race  pride  or  race  integrity. 
Any  imitation  of  one  race  by  another  of  such  a  whole- 
sale and  servile  kind  as  to  involve  complete  race  self- 
abnegation  must  be  disastrous  to  all  concerned. 

This  tendency  toward  superficial  and  merely  repro- 
ductive imitation  has  been  the  bane  of  negro  edu- 
cation. The  facility  with  which  the  negro  child 
successfully  imitated  the  external  symbols  of  white  cul- 
ture filled  the  northern  missionaries  of  Reconstruction 
days  with  enthusiasm  which  was  only  intensified  by 
the  coldness  or  downright  opposition  of  the  southern 
white.  When  the  days  of  trial  for  these  "new 
negroes"  came,  however,  it  was  found  that  the  root 
of  the  matter  was  not  in  them.  A  superficial  knowl- 
edge of  Latin  or  Greek  or  an  acquaintance  with  the 
elements  of  music  or  drawing  did  not  result  in  useful 
and  contented  citizens.  It  was  found  by  sad  experi- 
ence that  too  often  it  resulted  in  the  pretentious 
good-for-nothing.  This  zeal  for  the  externals  of 
higher  culture  has  become  almost  a  species  of  fetich 
worship  with  negroes  of  a  certain  class.  An  intelli- 
gent mulatto  and  a  college  graduate  remarked  to  the 
writer  that  since  Booker  Washington  presumably 
knew  neither  Greek  nor  Calculus  he  was  therefore  no 
fit  educational  leader  for  his  race. 

The  slavish  imitation  of  the  white's  civilisation  and 


100  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

the  tendency  to  ignore  differences  in  race  and  social 
status  present  a  very  practical  problem  in  present- 
day  negro  education.1  The  text-books  set  before 
negro  children  are  usually  the  same  as  those  prepared 
for  the  white  and  are  filled  with  pictures  idealising 
the  Anglo-Saxon  type  and  the  social  environment  of 
the  white  child,  whereas  differences  of  race,  if  nothing 
more,  make  it  impossible  for  the  negro  child  to  attain 
this  ideal.  This  is  his  "social  copy,"  and  yet  he  is 
censured  if  as  mature  man  or  woman  he  despises  his 
own  race  and  surrenders  his  self-respect  in  abject 
imitation  of  the  white.  The  shock  of  disillusionment 
which  must  come  when  he  finds  that  it  is  all  a  false 
dream  and  that  he  lives  "within  the  veil"  will  be  by 
no  means  as  tragic  for  the  average  negro  as  it  was  for 
the  sensitive  nature  of  DuBois,2  but  it  will  be  real 
nevertheless. 

The  use  of  language  perhaps  more  than  anything 
else  betrays  the  negro's  inclination  to  reproductive 
imitation.  The  ease  with  which  the  ordinary  negro 
farm-hand  will  acquire  a  vocabulary  abounding  in 
words  of  four  and  five  or  more  syllables  and  the  glib- 
ness  with  which  he  makes  use  of  it  has  been  a  matter  of 
amazement  as  well  as  of  amusement  to  more  than  one 
observer.  Analysis  will  show,  however,  that  the 

1  Odum,  Social  and  Mental  Traits  of  the  Negro,  p.  45. 
8  Souls  of  Black  Folks,  p.  2. 


THE  NEGRO  AND  HIS  SOCIAL  HERITAGE         IOI 

sound  only  has  been  imitated.  Hence  it  often  happens 
that  a  word  is  used  stripped  entirely  of  its  ideational 
setting  and  naturally  with  the  most  incongruous 
results.  It  would  require  keener  powers  of  psycholog- 
ical analysis  than  those  possessed  by  the  average  man 
to  tell  the  exact  connotation  of  the  terms  of  the  salu- 
tations often  heard  on  the  lips  of  southern  negroes : 
"How  does  you  sagashiate  to-day?"  or  "How  does 
yer  wife  appromulgate  dis  mawnin'?"  The  pleas- 
urable sensations  from  the  manipulation  of  the 
vocal  apparatus  as  well  as  the  sonorous  effect  on  the 
ear  of  large  words  seem  to  be  of  more  importance  than 
the  conveyance  of  any  definite  idea. 

The  use,  or  rather  the  misuse,  of  language  by  the 
masses  of  negroes,  and  we  might  add  of  whites  also, 
reveals  to  us  as  does  nothing  else  how  utterly  out  of 
touch  is  their  thought  and  life  with  those  great  treas- 
ure-houses of  literary,  artistic,  moral,  and  religious 
ideals  stored  up  in  our  English  tongue.  The  explana- 
tion, so  far  as  the  negro  is  concerned,  is  not  far  to  seek. 
Words  are  acquired  imitatively  by  the  child  in  the 
cultured  home  circle  long  before  their  real  meanings 
dawn  upon  him.  The  "copy"  offered,  in  the  form 
of  correct  and  refined  speech  by  his  elders,  assures 
to  him  from  the  very  start  an  external  and  mechanical 
propriety  in  the  use  of  words,  which  becomes  second 
nature,  while  his  expanding  experience  in  time  fills 


IO2  DEMOCRACY   AND  RACE   FRICTION 

out  these  cultural  symbols  with  exact  meaning  and 
well-defined  content.  In  the  majority  of  negro  homes 
and  among  many  whites  this  early  training  is  lacking. 
As  we  shall  see  later,  the  question  as  to  whether  the 
negro  is  to  have  any  social  heritage  he  can  really  call 
his  own  will  depend  largely  upon  his  ability  to  create 
this  cultural  environment  in  the  home. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  serious 
difficulty  that  besets  the  attempt  of  the  negro  at  com- 
plete imitative  assimilation  of  his  social  heritage, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  imitative  process  must  take 
place  for  the  most  part  within  his  own  group.  The 
imitative  process  may  be  restricted  by  various  factors 
such  as  the  physical  isolation  of  a  mountainous  or 
insular  group  life  or  the  linguistic  isolation  of  a  people 
such  as  the  Basques,  the  Welsh,  the  French  Canadians, 
or  the  Pennsylvania  Germans.  More  effective  still 
is  the  social  isolation  produced  by  differences  of  race.1 
The  Jews  shut  up  for  centuries  in  the  ghettos  of  med- 
iaeval Europe  are  a  typical  illustration.  They  were 
thrown  back  upon  their  own  group  entirely  for  social 
copy.  In  spite  of  the  many  powerful  influences  that 
tend  in  our  American  life  to  give  the  greatest  possible 
scope  to  the  imitative  process,  racial  antipathy  has 
effected  a  social  isolation  of  the  negro,  that  limits  the 
process  of  assimilation  of  the  social  heritage  mainly 

1  Ross,  Social  Psychology,  p.  228. 


THE   NEGRO   AND  HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE         103 

to  his  own  group.  "The  world  of  modern  intellectual 
life,"  observes  Thomas,  "is  in  reality  a  white  man's 
world.  Few  women  and  perhaps  no  blacks  have  ever 
entered  this  world  in  the  fullest  sense.  To  enter  it  in 
the  fullest  sense  would  be  to  be  in  it  at  every  moment 
from  the  time  of  birth  to  the  time  of  death,  and  to 
absorb  it  unconsciously  and  consciously,  as  the  child 
absorbs  language."  1 

A  slow  but  wide-spread  process  of  race  segregation 
going  on  in  all  parts  of  the  country  is  gradually  di- 
vorcing the  negro  from  the  white  man's  world.  This, 
indeed,  may  not  be  true  of  the  negro  "intellectuals," 
for  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  higher  democracy  of 
the  spirit  will  always  scorn  social  or  racial  barriers. 
Their  spokesman  may  truthfully  say,  "I  sit  with 
Shakespeare  and  he  winces  not.  Across  the  color 
line  I  move  arm  in  arm  with  Balzac  and  Dumas, 
where  smiling  men  and  welcoming  women  glide  in 
gilded  halls.  From  out  the  caves  of  evening  that 
swing  between  the  strong-limbed  earth  and  the  tracery 
of  the  stars,  I  summon  Aristotle  and  Aurelius  and  what 
soul  I  will,  and  they  come  all  graciously  and  with  no 
scorn  or  condescension.  So  wed  with  truth  I  dwell 
within  the  Veil.  Is  this  the  life  you  grudge  us,  O 
knightly  America?"2  Were  all  men,  white  and 

1  "The  Mind  of  Woman  and  the  Lower  Races,"  American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  XII,  p.  496. 

1  DuBois,  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk,  p.  109. 


104  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

black,  born  acclimated,  full-fledged  citizens  of  this 
glittering  world  of  the  idealist,  the  problem  would  be 
immensely  simplified.  Nature  and  human  life,  as 
we  know  them,  have,  however,  interposed  between  the 
new-born  babe  and  its  social  heritage  differences  of 
race,  environment,  intellectual  endowment,  social 
position,  and  opportunity,  the  theoretical  equity  of 
which  we  may  reject,  but  the  reality  of  which  we  will 
hardly  deny.  Those,  therefore,  who  in  the  end 
receive  citizenship  in  this  higher  democracy  of  the 
spirit,  which  is  the  only  true  democracy,  receive  it 
because  they  have  earned  it,  and  are  capable  of  it,  and 
not  by  virtue  of  any  unalterable  and  inherent  right 
to  it.  Among  those  disabilities  of  fundamental  im- 
portance for  the  average  negro  are  race  traits,  and  we 
have  every  reason  to  believe  that  they  must  be  reck- 
oned with  for  an  indefinite  period  in  the  future. 

The  masses  of  the  negroes  are  to-day  farther  away 
from  the  white  man's  world  than  they  were  during 
slavery,  as  a  result  of  race  segregation.  There  was 
then  much  more  of  that  intimate  and  personal  con- 
tact which  is  indispensable  to  the  imitative  absorption 
of  white  culture  by  the  black.  A  southerner  has 
described  for  us  that  life  as  follows :  "  During  the 
winter  evenings  when  it  was  disagreeable  out  of  doors, 
I  would  get  permission  for  four  or  five  negro  boys  and 
girls  to  play  with  me  in  the  library  or  in  the  nursery. 


THE   NEGRO  AND  HIS   SOCIAL   HERITAGE          105 

Here  we  would  play  indoor  games :  jack-straws, 
blind-man's  buff,  checks,  checkers,  pantomime,  geog- 
raphy puzzles,  conundrum  matches,  and  spelling 
bees.  Frequently  I  would  read  the  negroes  fairy 
stories,  or  show  them  pictures  in  the  magazines  and 
books  of  art.  I  remember  how  we  used  to  linger  over 
a  beautiful  picture  of  Lord  William  Russell  bidding 
adieu  to  his  family  before  going  to  execution;  and 
how  in  a  boyish  way  I  would  tell  the  negroes  the  story 
of  his  unhappy  fate  and  his  wife's  devotion.  Another 
favorite  picture  was  the  coronation  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria. How  we  delighted  in  'Audubon's  Birds' 
and  in  the  beautifully  colored  plates  and  animals  in 
the  government  publications  on  natural  history. 
The  pleasure  was  by  no  means  one-sided.  To  our 
hotchpot  of  amusement  and  instruction  the  negroes 
contributed  marvellous  tales  of  birds  and  animals, 
which  more  than  offset  my  familiar  reminiscences 
of  Queen  Victoria  and  Lord  Russell." *  Similar 
social  intercourse  of  a  more  or  less  intimate  nature 
took  place  also  when  the  negro  cabins  were  visited 
to  listen  to  tales  of  negro  folklore  which  Joel  Chandler 
Harris  has  made  famous  or  when  the  older  negroes 
came  to  the  "big  house."  Fanny  Kemble  is  an  in- 

1  Professor  Winston,  "The  Relations  of  the  Whites  to  the  Negroes," 
Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
XVIII,  p.  106. 


106  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

structive  example  of  the  effect  of  the  intelligent  in- 
terest of  the  mistress  of  a  slave  household  on  the 
physical  and  moral  betterment  of  the  slaves.1 

This  close  social  contact  of  the  races  has  now  almost 
entirely  disappeared.  In  the  state  of  Mississippi 
with  almost  one  million  blacks,  a  tenth  of  all,  there 
are  to-day  practically  no  points  of  social  contact 
whatever  where  the  two  races  meet  and  exchange 
ideas.  Separate  schools,  separate  churches,  separate 
telephones,  the  "Jim  Crow"  car,  restrictions  of  the 
ballot,  not  to  mention  anti-negro  political  agitation,2 
have  produced  an  alienation  of  the  two  races  without 
a  parallel.  Everywhere  throughout  the  South,  de- 
spite physical  contact  in  a  business  way  and  the 
unavoidable  intermingling  on  the  streets  of  the  cities, 
the  two  peoples  live  and  move  in  totally  different 
worlds  of  thought  and  feeling.  "  The  best  elements 
of  the  two  races  are  as  far  apart  as  though  they  lived 
on  different  continents ;  and  that  is  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  the  growing  danger  of  the  Southern  situa- 
tion." 3 

The  negroes  are  developing  in  an  aimless  sort  of 
way  leaders  and  professional  men  such  as  teachers, 

1  Journal,  p.  63. 

2  See  the  writer's  article,  "  Vardamanism, "  in  the  New  York  Inde- 
pendent for  Aug.  30,  1911. 

3  Baker,  Following  the  Color  Line,  p.  44. 


THE   NEGRO  AND  HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE          107 

ministers,  mechanics,  and  successful  business  men, 
but  the  alienation  between  this  budding  social  aristoc- 
racy and  the  leaders  of  the  whites  is  perhaps  greatest 
of  all.  They  do  not  meet  professionally ;  they  attend 
different  churches;  they  do  not  listen  to  the  same 
lectures  nor  do  they  take  part  in  the  same  political 
hustings.  Those  modern  centres  of  intellectual  life 
and  social  solidarity  along  higher  planes  such  as 
museums,  public  lectures,  public  libraries,  and  concert 
halls,  furnish  them  no  common  meeting  ground  for 
interchange  of  ideas,  owing  to  the  inexorable  demands 
of  the  colour  line.  It  would  seem  that  only  the  supreme 
exigencies  of  a  social  crisis,  such  as  the  Atlanta  riot 
of  1906,  can  bring  together  these  elements  of  the  two 
races.  According  to  Mr.  Baker,  the  committee  of 
the  blacks  and  whites  that  met  as  a  sequel  of  that 
riot  "was  the  first  important  occasion  in  the  South 
upon  which  an  attempt  was  made  to  get  the  two  races 
together  for  any  serious  consideration  of  their  dif- 
ferences." l 

The  effect  of  this  social  isolation  of  the  negro  is  of 
the  greatest  importance  for  both  black  and  white. 
The  closing  of  every  "  door  of  hope"  to  the  negro  and 
his  persistent  intellectual  and  moral  pauperisation 
must  in  the  end  react  upon  the  civilisation  of  the 
white.  The  real  education  of  every  individual  comes 

\r 

1  Baker,  op.  cit.t  p.  20. 


108  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

from  his  environment.  For  that  reason  we  are  all 
educators  one  of  another.  It  is  wiser  to  admit  the 
negro  to  all  the  stimulus  and  inspiration  of  the  white's 
social  heritage,  in  so  far  as  this  does  not  endanger  the 
integrity  of  the  social  heritage  itself,  than  to  encourage 
an  ignorant  and  debased  citizenship  by  his  neglect 
and  repression.  It  is,  of  course,  entirely  obvious  that 
every  murder,  or  lynching  bee,  or  cowardly  terrorising 
of  a  weaker  race  sets  free  subtle  educative  forces 
which  react  upon  both  groups.  It  furnishes  "social 
copy"  for  the  rising  generation  of  blacks  and  whites 
which  will  be  built  into  the  fabric  of  their  personalities, 
brutalising  and  barbarising  their  own  souls  and  ulti- 
mately cheapening  the  whole  tone  of  the  civilisation 
of  the  future. 

In  a  far  deeper  and  more  tragic  sense,  however, 
does  the  repressed  and  isolated  negro  become  the 
nemesis  of  the  white.  For  by  being  a  willing  partner 
in  a  process  of  repression  the  white  voluntarily  sur- 
rounds himself  with  a  group  of  lower  economic  effi- 
ciency, less  exacting  moral  standards,  unsanitary 
homes,  and  an  outlook  on  human  life  devoid  of  the 
stimulus  of  hope  and  the  spur  of  ambition.  This 
negro  group  is  in  part  at  least  the  foil,  the  social 
background,  against  which  the  white  must  unfold 
his  own  personality  and  attain  his  utmost  limit  of 
power  and  social  worth.  But  according  to  the  econ- 


THE  NEGRO  AND  HIS  SOCIAL  HERITAGE         109 

omy  of  human  society,  we  usually  measure  up  only 
to  what  is  demanded  of  us.  Our  loftiest  conception 
of  our  own  potentialities  dwindles  in  the  prosaic 
humdrum  of  daily  life  to  what  our  actual  opportunities 
for  self-realisation  are  and  what  our  fellows  demand 
that  we  become.  Lower  the  tone  of  the  environment, 
and  it  becomes  a  very  easy  matter  to  take  a  "  moral 
holiday."  It  is  hard  for  the  individual  conscience 
to  hold  its  own  where  the  community  is  indifferent 
or  equivocates  on  moral  issues.  The  background 
of  the  "  ought"  is  in  the  social  mind ;  with  that  gone 
the  individual  conscience  tends  to  drop  into  the  class 
of  the  moral  invertebrates.  "  To  say  that  the  stronger 
tends  to  become  brutal  because  the  weaker  is  brutal, 
or  slovenly  because  the  weaker  is  slovenly,  is  to  touch 
the  process  only  on  its  surface.  The  deeper  fact  is  not 
that  of  imitation  nor  yet  that  of  contagion.  It  is 
that  tragedy  of  recurrent  accommodations,  of  habitual 
self-adjustments  to  lower  conceptions  of  life  and  to 
feebler  notions  of  excellence,  which  is  nothing  less 
than  education  in  its  descending  and  contractive 
forms."  1 

In  view  of  the  thorough  alienation  of  the  races 
through  Reconstruction,  not  to  mention  more  funda- 
mental reasons,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  whites 
at  the  South  will  ever  permit  to  any  great  extent  the 
1  Murphy,  The  Basis  of  Ascendency,  p.  158. 


110  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

immediate  sharing  of  their  social  heritage  by  the 
masses  of  the  blacks.  It  seems  now  that  the  negro 
will  be  thrown  back  upon  his  own  group,  for  the  most 
part,  for  leadership  and  for  "  social  copy."  Certainly 
there  is  the  most  imperative  need  among  the  negroes 
at  present  for  leaders  of  character  and  intelligence 
who  can  furnish  inspiration  to  the  rising  generation 
of  the  blacks.  Dr.  Booker  Washington  testifies  to 
the  personal  inspiration  that  came  to  him  as  a  youth 
from  reading  the  life  of  Frederick  Douglas.  It  is 
impossible  to  estimate  the  effect  of  Dr.  Washington's 
example  among  the  negro  youth  of  to-day.  He  is 
multiplying  himself  in  the  students  sent  out  from 
Tuskeegee,  each  of  whom  is  to  "  become  a  centre  of 
influence  and  light  in  showing  the  masses  of  our  people 
of  the  South  how  to  lift  themselves  up."  :  There  is, 
above  all,  a  need  for  a  stable,  respectable  middle 
class  among  the  negroes  which  shall  form  a  rallying 
point  for  the  building  up  of  a  body  of  race  traditions 
and  race  pride  of  the  nobler  sort.  Without  this  it  is 
impossible  to  have  a  group  sentiment  that  will  insist 
upon  honesty  in  business  and  purity  in  the  home. 
As  long  as  it  is  possible  for  a  negro  to  violate  half  of 
the  commands  of  the  decalogue  and  still  not  lose  social 
standing  with  his  group,  it  is  useless  to  hope  for  ma- 
terial improvement. 

1  The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,  p.  115. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   HIS   SOCIAL  HERITAGE          III 

Thorough  social  solidarity,  necessary  to  the  building 
up  among  the  negroes  of  ideals  which  shall  determine 
the  standards  of  the  group  as  a  whole,  is  difficult,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  many  negroes  of  the  well-to-do  class 
shun  complete  identification  with  their  race.  The 
better  class  are  often  repelled  by  the  servant  status 
of  the  majority  of  the  blacks,  especially  in  the  cities, 
and  by  their  noisy  emotionalism  in  religion  and  per- 
haps also  by  the  menace  of  moral  contamination. 
There  is  also  evidence  of  the  existence  of  prejudice 
based  upon  colour  among  the  negroes.  A  distinction 
is  made  in  Nashville  among  the  blacks  between  the 
"blue- veined"  and  the  "gravy"  churches. *  There 
is  no  evidence  that,  were  we  to  become  a  nation  of 
mongrels  such  as  the  peoples  to  the  south  of  us,  colour- 
prejudice  would  cease  to  exist.  We  cannot  help 
wondering  whether  some  of  our  cultured  mulattoes, 
who  seemingly  hope  for  such  a  consummation,  would 
not  be  found  identified  with  the  aristocratic  de  couleur 
as  are  the  mulattoes  of  Haiti,  where,  in  spite  of  racial 
amalgamation,  class  distinctions  based  on  colour  are 
still  the  bane  of  the  ill-fated  republic.  "Color-prej- 
udice," writes  Charmant  of  Haitian  society,  "or,  to 
speak  more  correctly,  color-jealousy,  is  much  more  in 

1  Perry,  "Studies  in  the  Religious  Life  of  the  Negroes  of  Nash- 
ville, Tennessee,"  Vanderbilt  University  Quarterly,  April,  1904,  pp. 
90,  91. 


112  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

evidence  among  persons  of  mixed  blood  than  among 
the  whites."  1 

No  other  factor,  doubtless,  will  prove  of  such  impor- 
tance in  the  final  determination  of  the  relation  of  the 
negro  to  his  social  heritage  as  industrial  competition. 
It  is  a  question  here  of  gaining  and  keeping,  in  the 
face  of  the  growing  intensity  of  modern  life,  the  posi- 
tion in  the  economic  order  which  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  the  unfolding  of  moral  and  spiritual  poten- 
tialities of  the  highest  order  in  the  individual  and  the 
group.  Lecky  has  pointed  out  that  many  of  the 
most  highly  prized  virtues,  such  as  veracity  and 
honesty,  are  the  outcome  of  industrialism.2  They  are 
the  patterns  or  "structural  organisations"  in  the 
realms  of  ethical  ideals,  corresponding  to  the  social 
adjustments  and  activities  of  an  industrial  civilisa- 
tion. The  personal  attainment  of  these  ideals,  and 
hence  the  complete  and  sympathetic  sharing  in  the 
social  heritage,  can  only  be  had  through  active  par- 
ticipation in  the  industrial  life.  This,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  not  a  free  gift  of  the  community  to  every 
individual,  but  comes  as  a  result  of  proven  efficiency 
in  the  face  of  constant  competition.  There  is,  there- 
fore, a  fundamental  organic  relation  between  the 

1  Haiti  Vivra-t-elle?    p.  3,  quoting  from  Victor  Meignan,  Aux 
Antilles,  p.  52. 

2  History  of  European  Morals,  I,  pp.  143  ff. 


THE   NEGRO   AND    HIS   SOCIAL   HERITAGE         113 

two  weaknesses  that  are  pointed  out  as  the  gravest 
obstacles  to  the  progress  of  the  negro  race,  namely, 
economic  inefficiency  and  low  moral  standards.1 
The  one  is  the  logical  and  inevitable  accompaniment 
of  the  other,  for  thriftlessness,  improvidence,  and 
social  inefficiency  in  general  find  their  natural  counter- 
part in  conceptions  of  moral  and  social  values  that 
are  more  or  less  anti-social. 

Booker  T.  Washington  has  shown  a  truly  philo- 
sophic insight  into  the  meaning  of  society  as  well  as 
a  thorough  realisation  of  the  issue  before  his  people 
in  his  emphasis  of  social  and  moral  salvation  through 
industrial  education.  He  realises  that  a  quick  but 
superficial  assimilation  of  the  outward  forms  and 
"symbols  of  culture  without  the  subjective  reinterpre- 
tation  of  them  through  training  and  experience,  which 
alone  can  give  to  them  true  meaning  and  content, 
results  too  often  in  the  dilettante  in  art,  the  Philis- 
tine in  morals,  and  the  monstrosity  in  citizenship.2 

"One  of  the  saddest  sights  I  ever  saw,"  says  Mr. 
Washington,  "was  the  placing  of  a  three-hundred 
dollar  rose-wood  piano  in  a  country  school  in  the 
South  that  was  located  in  the  midst  of  the  'black 
belt.'  Am  I  arguing  against  the  teaching  of  instru- 
mental music  to  the  negroes  in  that  community? 

1  Stone,  The  American  Race  Problem,  p.  205. 

2  H.  H.  Bancroft,  Retrospection,  pp.  369,  370. 
I 


114  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

Not  at  all ;  only  I  should  have  deferred  those  music 
lessons  about  twenty-five  years.  There  are  numbers 
of  such  pianos  in  thousands  of  New  England  homes. 
But  behind  the  piano  in  the  New  England  home  there 
are  one  hundred  years  of  toil,  sacrifice,  and  economy ; 
there  is  the  small  manufacturing  industry,  started 
several  years  ago  by  hand  power,  now  grown  into  a 
great  business;  there  is  ownership  in  land,  a  com- 
fortable home  free  from  debt,  and  a  bank  account. 
In  the  'black  belt'  community  where  this  piano  went, 
four-fifths  of  the  people  owned  no  land,  many  lived 
in  rented  one-room  cabins,  many  were  in  debt  for 
food  supplies,  many  mortgaged  their  crops  for  the 
food  on  which  to  live,  and  not  one  had  a  bank  account. 
.  .  .  Industrial  lessons  would  have  awakened  in 
this  community  a  desire  'for  homes,  and  would  have 
given  the  people  the  ability  to  free  themselves  from 
industrial  slavery  to  the  extent  that  most  of  them 
would  have  soon  purchased  homes.  After  the  home 
and  the  necessities  of  life  were  supplied  would 
come  the  piano.  One  piano  lesson  in  a  home  of  one's 
own  is  worth  twenty  in  a  rented  log  cabin."  l 

In  the  life  of  a  group  as  well  as  of  an  individual  the 
treasures  of  civilisation  at  its  highest  levels  are  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  the  accumulated  experience  of  the 
past.  The  "apperceptive  mass"  which  the  individual 

1  The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,  pp.  32-34. 


THE   NEGRO    AND    HIS    SOCIAL   HERITAGE         115 

brings  to  bear  in  the  intellectual  assimilation  of  a 
new  idea  or  a  new  experience  represents  the  accumula- 
tions of  the  past,  the  structural  organisations  of  his 
mental  furniture  in  terms  of  past  activities.  The 
social  background  for  the  profitable  assimilation  of 
piano  music  was  lacking  in  the  negro  community 
of  the  "black  belt"  described  above. 

The  problem  of  the  social  integration  of  the  negro 
is  one  of  laying  a  foundation  of  industrial  efficiency 
to  which  in  time  the  higher  cultural  values  may  be 
added.  This  problem  of  laying  a  material  basis  for 
cultural  advancement  involves  ultimately  a  great 
deal  more  than  the  betterment  of  the  individual  and 
the  group.  It  may  involve  also  the  very  survival 
of  the  negro  himself.  To  debar  the  negro  because 
of  inefficiency  or  race-prejudice  from  activities  neces- 
sary to  the  development  of  the  highest  type  of  culture 
means,  of  course,  that  he  must  be  satisfied  with  occu- 
pations which  have  a  narrower  social  and  cultural  hori- 
zon. This  inevitably  dooms  him  to  the  mediocre 
and  the  commonplace.  But  such  a  systematic  im- 
poverishment of  the  negro  intellectually  and  morally 
must  in  time  result  in  the  disheartening  of  those  fitted 
by  natural  talents  for  the  best  in  the  social  heritage. 
This  would  amount  to  suppressing  the  chief  sources 
in  the  race  for  inspiration,  growth,  and  an  outlook 
upon  a  larger  life.  For  it  is  mainly  upon  this  element 


Il6  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

that  society  must  depend  to  reach  the  light-hearted 
and  unaspiring  masses  of  the  negroes  whose  primrose 
path  is  too  often  beset  with  the  socially  disintegrating 
forces  of  vice  and  disease  and  desperate  ignorance. 

The  prevalence  of  vice  and  disease  among  the  masses 
and  the  disheartening  effect  of  the  closing  of  the  door 
of  hope  have,  in  fact,  led  some  investigators  to  a  thor- 
oughly pessimistic  attitude  toward  the  future  of  the 
negro  in  this  country.  Professor  Wilcox,  whose 
thorough  acquaintance  with  negro  statistics  entitles 
him  to  a  most  respectful  hearing,  thinks  that  the 
deteriorating  effect  of  vice  and  disease  together  with 
"profound  discouragement"  due  to  persistent  social 
repression  and  industrial  defeat  will  ultimately  result 
in  the  undoing  of  the  race.  "The  final  outcome," 
he  says,  "though  its  realisation  may  be  postponed 
for  centuries,  will  be,  I  believe,  that  the  race  will 
follow  the  fate  of  the  Indians,  that  the  great  majority 
will  disappear  before  the  whites,  and  that  the  remnant 
found  capable  of  elevation  to  the  level  of  the  white 
man's  civilisation  will  ultimately  be  merged  and  lost 
in  the  lower  classes  of  the  whites,  leaving  almost  no 
trace  to  mark  their  former  existence."  * 

The  facts  indicate  that  the  fight  for  an  economic 
foothold  upon  which  depends  the  negro's  entrance 

1  The  Proceedings  of  the  Conference  at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  1900, 
on  "Race  Problems  at  the  South,"  p.  156. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   HIS    SOCIAL  HERITAGE         II J 

upon  his  social  heritage  and  perhaps  his  survival  as 
a  race  has  already  been  lost  in  the  North.  This  has 
doubtless  been  due  in  part  to  the  physical  unfitness 
of  the  negro  for  the  climate  *  and  partly  to  the  swift- 
ness of  the  pace  set  in  every  phase  of  life.  Corre- 
spondents for  the  negro  paper,  the  New  York  Age, 
have  chronicled  the  story  of  the  ousting  of  the  negro 
from  the  callings  of  boot-black,  barber,  waiter,  janitor, 
caterer,  stevedore,  and  newsvender  by  the  Italian, 
Greek,  German,  and  Swiss  in  northern  cities.2 

This  is  to  be  attributed  not  primarily  to  race-prej- 
udice, but  to  inefficiency.  "In  New  York,"  says 
Miss  Ovington,  "the  untrained  negroes  not  only  form 
a  very  large  class,  but  coming  in  contact,  as  they  do, 
with  foreigners  who  for  generations  have  been  forced 
to  severe,  unremitting  toil,  they  suffer  by  comparison. 
Contrast  the  intensive  cultivation  of  Italy  or  Switzer- 
land with  the  farms  of  Georgia  or  Alabama,  or  the 
hotels  of  France  with  those  of  Virginia,  and  you  will 
see  the  disadvantages  from  which  the  negro  suffers. 
In  New  York  these  men  are  driven  at  a  pace  that  at 
the  outset  distracts  the  colored  man  who  prefers  his 
leisurely  way.  Moreover,  the  foreign  workmen  have 

1  Hoffman  states  that  in  New  England  the  negro  would  die  out 
but  for  recruits  from  the  South.    Race,  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the 
American  Negro,  p.  36. 

2  Stone,  The  American  Race  Problem,  pp.  154  ff.,  for  citations. 


Il8  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

learned  persistence;  they  are  punctual  and  appear 
every  morning  at  their  tasks."  1  Booker  Washington 
recognises  the  inability  of  the  negroes  to  survive  in 
competition  with  the  foreign  populations  of  the 
northern  cities  and  urges  them  to  occupy  the  southern 
field  before  competition  brings  about  like  conditions 
there.2 

On  the  occasion  of  the  exodus  of  southern  negroes 
to  Kansas  in  1879-1880,  and  the  consequent  con- 
sternation among  southern  planters,  Frederick  Doug- 
las made  the  boast  that  only  "the  naked  iron  arm  of 
the  negro"  could  prevent  the  South  from  becoming 
a  desolate  wilderness.  For  the  negro  "stands  to-day 
the  admitted  author  of  whatever  prosperity,  beauty 
and  civilisation  are  now  possessed  by  the  South, 
and  the  admitted  arbiter  of  her  destiny." 3  This 
statement  must  be  subjected  to  very  serious  modifica- 
tions in  the  light  of  industrial  developments  in  the 
South  during  the  generation  that  has  elapsed  since 
Douglas  made  this  prophecy.  Most  significant  is 
the  uncertainty  of  negro  leaders  themselves  on  the 
future  of  the  negro  at  the  South.  "Almost  the  ' 
whole  problem  of  the  negro  in  the  South,"  says^Mr. 
Washington,  "rests  upon  the  fact  as  to  whether  the 

1  M.  W.  Ovington,  Half  a  Man,  pp.  101,  102. 

2  Charities,  Oct.  7, 1905,  pp.  17, 19,  quoted  by  Stone,  op.  cit.,  p.  172. 
1  Life  and  Times,  pp.  525,  526. 


THE    NEGRO   AND    HIS    SOCIAL   HERITAGE        IIQ 

negro  can  make  himself  of  such  indispensable  service 
to  his  neighbor  and  the  community  that  no  one  can 
fill  his  place  better  in  the  body  politic.  There  is  at 
present  no  other  safe  course  for  the  black  man  to 
pursue."  :  As  it  is,  if  he  enjoys  any  monopoly  of 
labour  at  all,  it  is  confined  to  the  lower,  less  exacting, 
and  therefore  less  remunerative,  forms  of  labour.  The 
negro  can  plant  and  hoe  and  plough  and  pick  the 
cotton  and  take  it  to  the  gin,  but  when  he  tries  to  fol- 
low the  bale  into  the  mill  he  is  unable  to  measure  up 
,to  the  standard  of  skill  required  for  this  work.  Like- 
wise he  may  fell  the  tree  or  dig  out  the  iron  ore,  but 
in  the  factory  these  same  products  pass  into  more 
skilful  hands.2 

Even  as  tiller  of  the  soil  and  labour  supply  there  is 
evidence  of  a  growing  feeling  in  sections  of  the  South 
that  much  of  the  agricultural  unprogressiveness  of 
that  region  is  due  to  the  negro's  inefficiency.  This 
finds  expression  in  the  following  language  of  a  southern 
editor.  "The  ignorant  negro  in  the  South  to-day  is  a 
great  economic  burden  and  as  a  rule  states  and  com- 
munities are  prospering  in  proportion  to  their  white 
population.  I  do  not  know  what  we  are  going  to  do 
with  the  negro.  I  do  know  that  we  must  either 
frame  a  scheme  of  education  and  training  that  will 

1  The  Future  of  the  American  Negro,  p.  216. 
8  B.  T.  Washington,  op.  cit.,  pp.  62  ff. 


120  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

keep  him  from  dragging  down  the  whole  level  of  life 
in  the  South,  that  will  make  him  more  efficient,  a 
prosperity  maker  and  not  a  poverty  breeder  or  else 
he  will  leave  our  farms  and  give  way  to  the  white 
immigrant."1  The  attempt  has  already  been  made 
to  substitute  Italian  labour  for  that  of  the  negroes  on 
the  plantations  of  the  far  South.2 

There  is  much  to  indicate  that,  when  the  industrial 
quickening  of  the  South,  now  seen  in  the  increase 
of  mills  and  factories,  shall  have  reached  the  farm,  the 
negro  will  again  have  to  face  the  demand  for  higher 
efficiency  which  he  failed  to  meet  in  the  cities  of  the 
North.  We  have  every  reason  -to  believe  that  this 
economic  struggle  will  decide  to  a  very  large  extent 
the  fate  of  the  masses  of  the  negro  in  this  country. 
Booker  Washington's  forecast  of  the  future  is  very 
different  from  that  of  Frederick  Douglas,  and  it  is 
undoubtedly  much  nearer  the  truth  when  he  says, 
"it  is  most  important  that  the  negro  and  his  white 
friends  honestly  face  the  facts  as  they  are  ;  otherwise 
the  time  will  not  be  very  far  distant  when  the  negro 
of  the  South  will  be  crowded  to  the  ragged  edge  of 
industrial  life  as  he  is  in  the  North."  3  This  is  cor- 

1  Clarence  H.   Poe,  editor  of   The  Progressive  Farmer,  Raleigh, 
North  Carolina,  writing  in  the  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of 
Political  and  Social  Science,  Vol.  XXXV,  p.  45. 

2  Stone,  op.  cit.,  pp.  180  ff.,  gives  a  description  of  the  experiment 
in  Arkansas.  *  Op.  cit.,  p.  79. 


THE    NEGRO    AND    HIS    SOCIAL   HERITAGE        121 

roborated  by  Professor  Kelsey  in  the  conclusions 
reached  in  his  valuable  monograph,  The  Negro 
Farmer,  p.  69:  "If  the  indications  point,  as  many 
believe,  toward  the  South  as  the  seat  of  the  next  great 
agricultural  development,  these  questions  become  of 
vital  importance  to  the  Negro.  Can  he  become  eco- 
nomically secure  before  he  is  made  to  meet  a  com- 
petition which  he  has  never  yet  faced  ?  Or  does  the 
warmer  climate  give  him  an  advantage,  which  the 
whites  cannot  overcome?  I  must  confess  that  I 
doubt  it."  To  be  "crowded  to  the  ragged  edge  of 
industrial  life"  will  mean  finally  to  be  crowded  to 
the  edge  of  society  in  general  and  the  logical  out- 
come of  such  a  situation  is  obvious,  namely,  social 
elimination. 

Our  conclusions  from  the  discussion  of  this,  perhaps 
the  most  important  factor  in  determining  the  future 
of  the  negro,  are,  first,  that  any  overhasty  attempts 
on  his  part  to  grasp  the  most  coveted  prizes  of  the 
civilisation  that  environs  him  before  he  has  assured 
for  himself  a  fixed  and  permanent  place  in  the  in- 
dustrial order  must  end  ia  failure.  They  will  fail  be- 
cause ours  is  an  industrial  civilisation  and  becoming  even 
more  so.  In  it  all  rights  and  privileges  are  won  rather 
than  received  as  free  gifts,  and  social  emoluments  are 
determined  largely  by  social  worth.  The  negro  has 
yet  to  learn  the  basic  principle  of  all  social  progress, 


122  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

namely,  that  the  comprehension  of  the  social  heri- 
tage and  its  proper  exploitation  must  depend  ulti- 
mately upon  living  one's  self  into  a  sympathetic 
understanding  of  it  through  creative  individual  activ- 
ity. Finally,  in  an  intense  and  strenuous  civilisation 
such  as  ours  not  only  the  rewards  and  the  privileges 
of  the  community,  but  ultimately  the  very  social 
survival  of  a  group  will  depend  upon  the  extent  to 
which  it  succeeds  in  making  for  itself  a  safe  and  sure 
place  in  the  social  order  through  its  own  proven  worth. 
This  will  be  especially  true  of  the  negro  because  he  is 
an  alien  race  and  because  of  the  disastrous  results 
in  the  past  of  admitting  him  to  places  of  power  and 
privilege  which  he  had  not  earned  and  for  which  he 
was  unfitted. 


CHAPTER  V 
RACE-PREJUDICE 

A  SEPARATE  chapter  must  be  devoted  to  that  factor 
which  is  generally  thought  to  be  the  chief  hindrance 
to  the  negro's  successful  assimilation  of  his  social 
heritage,  namely,  race-prejudice.  The  immediate 
effect  of  race-prejudice  is  to  set  the  negro  off  in  a 
separate  group.  This  segregation  is  often  as  irra- 
tional, apparently,  as  the  primitive  taboo.  No  dis- 
tinction is  drawn  between  the  intelligent  and  the 
ignorant,  the  upright  and  the  criminal,  the  efficient 
and  the  inefficient.  The  coloured  man  is  thrown  back 
upon  his  own  group  and  necessarily  his  outlook  for 
promotion  and  the  enjoyment  of  social  emoluments  is 
limited  to  what  his  own  people  alone  can  offer  him. 
This  does  not  amount  to  complete  starvation  of  the 
social  self,  as  sorrfe  negro  writers  so  bitterly  complain, 
but  it  does  mean  serious  restriction  of  the  negro  in 
his  effort  to  appropriate  the  best  that  his  social  in- 
heritance can  offer  him. 

The  negro  artisan,  for  example,  realises  that  in- 
creased efficiency  on  his  part  will  not  always  insure 
promotion,  as  is  usually  the  case  with  his  white  com- 

123 


124  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

petitor.  The  professions  of  law,  medicine,  the 
ministry,  or  teaching  offer  few  rewards  higher  than 
those  within  the  power  of  the  negroes  themselves  to 
give.  The  negro  who  wishes  to  expand  the  finer  sides 
of  his  nature  through  social,  literary,  or  artistic  inter- 
course with  whites  will  sooner  or  later  find  that  he 
cannot  do  so  without  running  the  risk  of  having  his 
own  sensibilities  wounded  by  social  slights  or  of  em- 
barrassing his  friends  of  the  other  race  by  his  pres- 
ence. "In  all  walks  of  life,"  says  a  prominent  negro 
writer,  "the  negro  is  liable  to  meet  some  objection 
to  his  presence  or  some  discourteous  treatment.  .  .  . 
If  an  invitation  is  issued  to  the  public  for  an  occasion, 
the  negro  can  never  know  whether  he  would  be  wel- 
comed or  not ;  if  he  goes,  he  is  liable  to  have  his  feel- 
ings hurt  and  get  into  unpleasant  altercation ;  if  he 
stays  away,  he  is  blamed  for  indifference.  If  he  meets 
a  life-long  friend  on  the  street,  he  is  in  a  dilemma ; 
if  he  does  not  greet  the  friend,  he  is  put  down  as 
boorish  and  impolite ;  if  he  does  greet  the  friend,  he  is 
liable  to  be  flatly  snubbed.1  .  .  .  White  friends  may 

1  A  southern  critic,  thoroughly  familiar  with  racial  conditions, 
makes  the  following  observation;  it  is  entirely  correct  and  throws 
an  interesting  light  upon  the  subtle  race  distinctions  at  the  South 
so  puzzling  to  the  stranger.  "It  is  true  that  if  a  negro  greets  a 
white  man,  he  is  liable  to  be  'flatly  snubbed,'  but  it  depends  alto- 
gether on  how  he  greets  him.  If  he  greets  the  white  man  as  an 
\  equal,  he  is  likely  to  be  flatly  snubbed.  If  he  greets  him  in  an  un- 
definable  way,  which  all  southern  negroes  understand,  as  a  member 


RACE-PREJUDICE  125 

call  on  him,  but  he  is  scarcely  expected  to  call  on  them 
save  for  strictly  business  matters.  If  he  gains  the 
affections  of  a  white  woman  and  marries  her,  he  may 
invariably  expect  that  slurs  will  be  thrown  on  her 
reputation  and  his,  and  that  both  his  and  her  race 
will  shun  their  company."  1  If  we  make  some  allow- 
ance for  the  sensitive  and  egoistic  temperament  of 
this  writer,  we  must  acknowledge  that  in  the  main  he 
is  correct. 

So  much  has  been  said  in  this  connection,  however, 
about  the  intolerant  and  repressive  attitude  of  the 
white  as  the  sole  or  chief  hindrance  to  the  negro's 
speedy  advancement  that  we  are  apt  to  ignore  other 
elements  in  the  problem.  Race-prejudice  has  existed 
from  the  very  origins  of  society,  and  we  have  reason 
to  think  that  it  or  its  civilised  equivalent  will  remain 
with  us  to  the  end.  But  history  gives  more  than  one 
instance  where  groups  have  not  only  survived,  but 
thriven  in  spite  of  race-prejudice.  Perhaps  there  is 
no  instance  of  white  intolerance  and  persecution  of 
the  emancipated  negro  which  cannot  be  paralleled  in 
the  persecution  of  the  Jew  in  the  Middle  Ages  and 

of  one  group  greeting  the  other,  he  is  a  great  deal  less  apt  to  be 
snubbed  .  .  .  that  is  to  say,  if  the  negro  greets  the  white  man  as  if  the 
white  man  were  another  negro,  or  greets  him  as  if  he  were  a  white 
man,  the  snub  follows ;  but  if  the  greeting  be  upon  the  assumption  of 
race  segregation,  the  snub  does  not  follow." 
1  DuBois,  The  Philadelphia  Negro,  p.  325. 


126  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

<*4 

down  to  the  present  time,  but  he  has  triumphed  over 
them  (JlxTIe  created  for  himself  a  social  heritage 
of  industrial  methods,  literary,  religious,  and  social 
traditions  which  have  enabled  him  to  develop  a  type 
of  personality  vigorous  enough  to  insure  social  sur- 
vival in  the  face  of  ostracism  and  persecution.     To- 
day the  Jew  has  forced  himself,  in  the  face  of  bitter 
race-prejudice  in  Germany,  to  the  very  top  of  the 
^professions  of  law,  medicine,  teaching,  and  journalism, 
^' while,  as  everywhere  in  the  world,  he  has  his  fingers 
t^  upon  the  purse-strings  of  the  nation.     The  strenuous 
process  of  age-long  social  repression  undergone  by 
.  V*     the  Jew  the  negro  could  doubtless  never  survive. 
•Fortunately  for  himself  he  will  not  have  to  undergo 
t.     But  it  at  least  suggests  to  us  that  there  is  some- 
g  more  needed  than  the  sympathy  or  even  the 
•.tolerance  of  the  white  if  the  negro  is  to  make  good  in 

9 

''  the  social  order. 

Theories  as  to  the  nature  of  race-prejudice 
vary  according  to  the  temperament  or  previous 
experience  of  those  concerned.  Whites  who  have 
had  large  experience  with  the  masses  of  the  negroes 
and  have  never  given  the  subject  critical  thought 
are  all  alike,  whether  in  the  southern  United 
States  or  in  South  Africa,  inclined  to  think  that  cor- 
responding to  the  physical  differences  we  have 
fundamental  hereditary  differences  in  instinctive 


RACE-PREJUDICE  127 

equipment  that  make  the  two  races  thoroughly  in- 
compatible.1 The  opposite  of  this  is  the  uncritical 
humanitarianism  which  denies  the  existence  of  any 
race-problem  except  that  of  our  own  creation.  "Our 
so-called  race-problems,"  says  Professor  Royce,  "are 
merely  the  problems  caused  by  our  antipathies." 
These  are  capricious  and  irrational  and  therefore 
utterly  without  justification.  "They  are  childish 
phenomena  in  our  lives,  phenomena  on  a  level  with 
the  dread  of  snakes  or  of  mice ;  phenomena  that  we 
share  with  the  cats  and  with  the  dogs,  not  noble 
phenomena,  but  caprices  of  our  complex  nature."  2 
Sir  Sidney  Olivier,  in  his  White  Capital  and  Colored 
Labor,  cites  at  length  Professor  Royce  as  a  "signifi- 
cant" and  "weighty"  authority  in  favour  of  the 
"long  view"  of  humanitarianism,  and  declares  "race- 
prejudice  is  a  fetich  of  the  man  of  short  views  .  .  . 
a  short-sighted  and  suicidal  creed,  with  no  healthy 
future  for  the  community  that  entertains  it."  3 

Mr.  Gardner  Murphy,  on  the  other  hand,  who  has 
penetrated  deeper  perhaps  than  any  one  else  into 
subtle  forces  at  work  in  this  problem,  insists  that 
"between  race-hatred  and  racial  antipathy  there  is  a 

1  For  this  reason  John  Temple  Graves  advocates  separation  of  the 
two  races.     "  Race  Problems  of  the  South,"  Proceedings  of  the  First 
Annual  Conference  at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  1900  ;  cp.  p.  55. 

2  Race  Questions  and  other  American  Problems,  pp.  47,  48,  49. 

3  Pp.  63,  173. 


128  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

.  great  difference.  The  former  is  a  curse,  the  latter  is 
a  blessing  to  the  white  man,  to  the  negro,  and  to  the 
land.  It  stands  to-day  as  the  most  effective  of  all 
"K  barriers  between  the  baser  tendencies  of  the  lower 
^  elements  of  both  races.  It  is  a  force  conservative  of 
racial  integrity,  of  social  purity,  and  the  public 
good."  l  Others  insist  that  racial  antipathy  is  due 
to  cultural  difference  rather  than  to  colour  of  the  skin 
or  inherited  characteristics.  The  race-problem  is, 
then,  essentially  one  of  narrowing  the  gap  between 
the  cultural  status  of  white  and  black.2 

The  anthropologists  and  sociologists  are  inclined  to 
trace  race-antipathy  back  to  its  social  origins. 
. "  Race-prejudice  is  an  instinct,"  says  Professor 
Thomas,  "originating  in  the  tribal  stage  of  society, 
when  solidarity  in  feeling  and  action  were  essential 
to  the  preservation  of  the  group.  It,  or  some  analogue 
of  it,  will  probably  never  disappear  completely,  since 
an  identity  of  standards,  traditions,  and  physical 
appearance  in  all  geographical  zones  is  neither  pos- 
sible nor  aesthetically  desirable.  It  is,  too,  an  affair 
which  can  neither  be  reasoned  with  nor  legislated 
about  very  effectively,  because  it  is  connected  with 
the  affective,  rather  than  the  cognitive  process." 3 

1  Race  Problems  at  the  South,  p.  19. 

2  Weatherly,  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Nov.,  191 1,  p.  484. 

!  "The   Psychology  of  Race  Prejudice,"   American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  IX,  pp.  610,  611. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  1 29 

Similarly  Professor  Boas  sees  in  it  "a  repetition  of  the 
old  instinct  and  fear  of  the  connubium  of  patricians 
and  plebeians,  of  the  European  nobility  and  the 
common  people,  or  of  the  castes  of  India.  The  emo- 
tions and  reasonings  concerned  are  the  same  in  every 
respect.  In  our  case  they  relate  particularly  to  the 
necessity  of  maintaining  a  distinct  social  status  in 
order  to  avoid  race  mixture.  It  is  rather  an  expres- 
sion of  social  conditions  that  are  so  deeply  ingrained 
in  us  that  they  assume  a  strong  emotional  value; 
and  this,  I  presume,  is  meant  if  we  call  such  feelings 
instinctive."  1 

From  the  foregoing  we  may  certainly  infer  that 
race-antipathy  is  a  very  real  social  phenomenon,  to 
be  expected  wherever  masses  of  different  races  come 
in  contact,  and  furthermore  that  it  is  very  complex. 
Probably  /the  most  elemental  and  primitive  factor 
in  race-prejudice  arises  from  the  instinctive  antipathy 
aroused  by  striking  and  unfamiliar  physical  differ- 
ences. A  cultured  white  lady  of  the  writer's  acquain- 
tance, who  has  seen  very  little  of  the  negro,  states  that 
the  touch  of  the  skin  of  the  coal  black  negro  has  the 
same  effect  upon  her  as  the  feel  of  a  snake.  Children 
and  even  adults  visiting  the  South  from  northern 
homes  have  been  known  to  express  an  unwillingness 
to  eat  biscuits  made  by  a  black  aunty,  for  fear  the 

1  Charities,  Oct.  7,  1905,  Vol.  XV,  pp.  87,  88. 
K 


130  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

black  had  rubbed  off  in  the  dough.  The  "conscious- 
ness of  kind"  of  gregarious  animals,  including  man,  is 
based  upon  certain  unvarying  signs  of  group  kinship 
such  as  the  white  skin,  and  in  the  absence  of  these 
there  is  a  feeling  of  antipathy  as  toward  one  outside 
the  group. 

The  most  primitive  forms  of  social  consciousness 
are  the  affective  states  aroused  by  similar  acts  per- 
formed by  individuals  intimately  linked  together  in 
group  life.  These  similar  affective  states  serve  as  the 
basis  of  common  group  action;  phenomena  of  this 
sort  are  familiar  among  gregarious  animals.  In  much 
the  same  way  the  colour  of  the  skin,  physiognomy, 
dress,  speech,  bodily  markings,  and  the  like  serve 
primitive  man  as  symbols  having  associated  with 
them  certain  affective  states  which  are  the  sources 
of  all  social  values.  These  common  feelings  form  the 
kernel  of  the  tribal  self  or  group  personality,  and  the 
feelings  of  strangeness  and  repulsion  aroused  by 
marked  variations  from  these  group  ways  of  appear- 
ing and  acting  are  perhaps  the  elemental  factor  in 
race-prejudice. 

The  more  circumscribed  the  group  life  and  the  less 
the  contact  with  varying  group  types,  the  more  pro- 
nounced will  be  the  feeling  of  unpleasantness  aroused 
by  the  stranger.  "On  entering  villages  previously 
unvisited  by  Europeans,"  says  Livingstone,  "if  we 


RACE-PREJUDICE  13! 

met  a  child  coming  quietly  and  unsuspectingly  toward 
us,  the  moment  he  raised  his  eyes  and  saw  the  men  in 
'bags,'  he  would  take  to  his  heels  in  an  agony  of 
terror,  such  as  we  might  feel  if  we  met  a  live  Egyptian 
mummy  at  the  door  of  the  British  Museum.  Alarmed 
by  the  child's  wild  outcries,  the  mother  rushes  out 
of  the  hut,  but  darts  back  again  at  the  first  sight  of 
the  fearful  apparition.  Dogs  turn  tail  and  scour  off 
in  dismay,  and  hens,  abandoning  their  chickens,  fly 
screaming  to  the  tops  of  the  houses."  1 

The  outcome  of  these  common  ways  of  feeling  and 
acting  on  the  part  of  the  group  would  be  the  develop- 
ment of  group  types  or  standards  of  beauty.  The 
Greek  philosopher  Xenophanes  observed  that  "the 
Ethiopians  make  their  gods  black  and  snub-nosed; 
Thracians  give  theirs  blue  eyes  and  red  hair." 2 
The  beau  ideal  of  the  African  negro  must  have  thick 
lips,  shiny  skin,  and  a  flattened  nose.  An  Australian 
woman  who  gave  birth  to  a  child  by  a  white  man 
"smoked  it  and  rubbed  it  with  oil  to  give  it  a  darker 
color."  In  the  same  way  certain  artificial  physical 
demarcations,  such  as  scarification  and  mutilation  of 
the  body,  come  to  be  closely  associated  with  the  group 
type.  The  instinctive  prejudice  aroused  by  a  varia- 

1  The  Zambesi  and  its  Tributaries,  p.  181,  quoted  by  Thomas, 
op.  cit.,  p.  600. 

2  Bakewell,  Source  Book  in  Ancient  Philosophy,  p.  8. 


132  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

tion  from  these  finds  its  counterpart  in  the  aversion 
felt  by  the  modern  for  the  individual  who  dares  defy 
the  fads  of  fashion.1 

V  Race-prejudice  in  this  sense  is  essentially  superficial 
and  usually  disappears  upon  constant  social  inter- 
course. Constant  contact  with  the  negro  will  elim- 
inate "skin-prejudice,"  as  is  shown  in  the  case  of 
the  southern  people.  White  travellers  even  testify 
to  an  actual  aversion  for  the  white  skin  after  long 
habituation  to  peoples  of  colour.  On  his  first  meeting 
with  whites  after  his  travels,  Stanley  says,  "I  blushed 
to  find  that  I  was  wondering  at  their  paleness.  .  .  . 
The  pale  color,  after  so  long  gazing  on  rich  black  or 
richer  bronze,  had  something  of  an  unaccountable 
ghastliness."  2 

When  physical  differences  of  race,  as  is  usually  the 
case,  are  associated  with  fixed  hereditary  differences, 
they  may  take  on  a  meaning  and  import  for  the  social 
mind  entirely  independent  of  their  external  character. 
This  is  especially  true  where  the  nature  of  these  dif- 
ferences makes  the  assimilation  of  the  group  a  difficult 
process.  Physical  characteristics  then  become  sym- 
bols of  race  and  group  antipathies  of  a  much  more 
lasting  and  serious  nature.  That  these  differences 

1  Thomas,  op.  cit.,  pp.  601  ff.,  for  authorities. 
1  Through  the  Dark  Continent,  II,  p.  462,  quoted  by  Thomas,  op,  cit., 
p.  608, 


RACE-PREJUDICE  133 

do  exist  in  the  case  of  the  negro,  we  have  tried  to  indi- 
cate in  an  earlier  chapter.  It  makes  little  difference 
practically  whether  they  are  hereditary  and  therefore 
permanent  or  whether  they  are  due  to  environment; 
the  effect  upon  the  white  group  is  the  same  in  either 
case,  i  The  social  mind  speedily  learns  to  associate  - 
with  the  black  skin  certain  standards  of  living,  moral 
ideals,  or  group  habits  which  do  not  harmonise  with 
those  of  the  dominant  group.]  A  similar  situation 
may  be  observed  in  the  case  of  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese  of  the  Pacific  coast.  They  are  refused 
access  to  complete  social  solidarity  and  are  set  off  in 
a  group  to  themselves  as  members  of  alien  races. 
The  method  by  which  the  social  mind  thus  makes 
colour  a  badge  of  certain  social  values  is  not  a  dis- 
criminating one  and  injustice  is  often  done  to  indi- 
viduals. The  group  mind  does  not  distinguish  criti- 
cally for  reasons  we  shall  indicate  later.  But  that 
such  a  colour  discrimination  is  not  irrational  nor  the 
outgrowth  of  race  hatred  pure  and  simple  will  be 
acknowledged  by  any  one  who  honestly  faces  the 
facts.1 

Where  masses  of  whites  and  blacks  are  brought 
together,  the  feeling  thus  gradually  grows  upon  both 
racial  groups  that  their  differences  have  a  more  sub- 

1  Baker,  Following  the  Color  Line,  pp.  141  ff .  Ovington,  Haifa  Man, 
pp.  100  ff.  Stone,  Studies  in  the  American  Race  Problem,  Ch.  V. 


134  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

stantial  basis  than  the  purely  physical.  They  become 
aware  that  beneath  these  external  characteristics 
there  are  differentiations  of  race  capacity  and  train- 
ing due  to  the  cumulative  effect  of  thousands  of 
years  of  environment  of  a  special  kind.  Consequently 
each  group  must  remain  somewhat  of  a  mystery  to 
the  other.  There  are  depths  of  race  consciousness 
and  race  experience  in  the  life  of  each  into  which  the 
other  cannot  enter.  Just  as  there  is  a  level  in  the 
soul  life  of  each  individual  ruled  by  the  subtle  forces 
of  temperament  and  disposition  which  sets  him  apart 
from  his  fellows,  so  there  are  temperamental  and 
instinctive  differences  between  races  which  lend  to 
them  individualities  of  their  own.  The  man  who 
undertakes  to  fathom  the  mind  of  a  member  of  a 
widely  different  race  finds  himself  lacking  at  the  start, 
therefore,  in  the  instinctive  and  hereditary  equip- 
ment which  alone  can  enable  him  to  enter  sympathet- 
ically into  the  consciousness  of  the  other.  Psychic 
traits  due  to  race  and  to  sex  offer  in  this  respect  in- 
teresting parallels.  In  both  cases  physiological 
differences  form  the  basis  for  temperamental  and 
emotional  experiences  which  must  be  diverse.  The 
humiliating  sense  of  abysmal  ignorance  or  the  con- 
viction of  downright  perversity  and  the  violation  of 
his  accepted  canons  of  truth  often  experienced  by 
a  member  of  the  stronger  sex  in  his  attempts  to 


RACE-PREJUDICE  135 

interpret  the  weaker  finds  its  parallel  and  for  the 
same  reasons  in  the  misunderstandings  of  racial 
groups.1 

The  instinctive  antipathy  due  to  physical  differ- 
ences and  the  more  serious  friction  arising  from  diver- 
gent group  traits  are  often  accentuated  by  economic 
competition.  Instances  of  this  frequently  occur  in 
the  North.  "As  a  general  rule,"  said  a  New  York 
contractor,  "the  ordinary  colored  man  can't  do  as 
much  work  nor  do  it  as  well  as  the  ordinary  white 
man.  The  result  is  I  don't  take  colored  men  when  I 
can  get  white  men."  2  It  is  natural  for  the  unions 
to  exclude  an  element  from  which  strikebreakers  are 
readily  recruited.  The  industrial  inefficiency  of  the 
negro  also  tends  to  lower  the  standards  of  living. 
Above  all,  race  traits  prevent  him  from  sharing  in  the 
intense  feeling  of  solidarity  and  community  of  larger 
group  interests  essential  to  the  very  life  of  the  unions. 
Here,  again,  the  badge  of  colour  has  come  to  symbol- 
ise and  set  off  group  differences  that  lie  far  deeper 
and  are  of  paramount  importance. 

It  was  inevitable,  therefore,  that  with  the  increase 
of  negroes  in  the  northern  centres  colour  should  come 
in  time  to  stand  for  the  subtler  racial  differences  so 

1  Olivier,  White  Capital  and  Coloured  Labour,  p.  28.  Murphy,  Basis 
of  Ascendency,  p.  80. 

2  Baker,  Folio-wing  the  Color  Line,  pp.  132,  142,  146. 


136  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

potent  at  the  South  or  wherever  the  negroes  are 
found  in  large  masses  competing  with  the  whites 
This  doubtless  explains  why  in  the  most  recent 
study  of  the  difficulties  encountered  by  the  negro 
in  his  effort  to  earn  a  livelihood  in  the  North  the 
writer  places  race-prejudice  as  "the  first  and  most 
obvious  reason."  She  thinks  that  now  in  the  North, 
as  always  at  the  South,  the  negro  is  sure  only  of  those 
employments  where  he  is  "imperatively  needed." 
Where  coloured  and  white  labour  are  alike  available 
the  tendency  is  to  thrust  the  negro  aside  or  leave  to 
him  those  jobs  the  white  does  not  desire.1 

Economic  forces  are  also  at  work  at  the  South, 
tending  to  accentuate  race-feeling.  We  can  trace 
in  states  such  as  Mississippi,  South  Carolina,  and 
Arkansas  the  recent  rise  to  power  of  a  submerged 
element  of  the  southern  population,  the  poor  white. 
This  element  possesses,  in  addition  to  the  hereditary 
antipathies  of  race,  political  ambitions  and  economic 
needs  that  bring  it  into  conflict  with  the  negro  in  a 
way  that  bodes  ill  for  the  future  amicable  relations 
of  the  races  in  those  sections.  This  numerous  class, 
which  occupies  for  the  most  part  the  pine  hills  and 
creek  bottoms  along  the  outskirts  of  the  "black  belt," 
resents  the  growing  inclination  of  the  negro  to  pur- 
chase farms  and  enter  into  direct  economic  competi- 

1  M.  W.  Ovington,  Half  a  Man,  pp.  91  if. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  137 

tion  with  them.  They  have  organised  in  some  south- 
ern communities  to  prevent  the  sale  of  lands  to  the 
negroes.  Where  this  has  failed  they  have  used  means 
of  intimidation  such  as  the  burning  of  the  houses  of 
the  negroes.1  A  school  of  politicians,  of  which  Mr. 
Vardaman  of  Mississippi  is  a  type,  have  made  un- 
scrupulous use  of  these  conditions  of  race  antagonism 
as  political  capital  to  secure  office  and  have  un- 
doubtedly aggravated  conditions  which  were  serious 
enough  to  start  with.  The  two  races  in  Mississippi 
are  now  farther  apart  perhaps  than  ever  before  in  the 
history  of  the  state.  In  the  interests  of  political 
demagoguery  the  seeds  of  race-hatred  have  been  culti- 
vated in  that  class  of  the  white  population  where 
above  all  the  spirit  of  forbearance  and  sympathy  is 
needed. 

Reference  must  be  made  in  this  connection  to 
another  potent  factor  in  the  South  especially  but 
felt  throughout  the  nation  as  a  fruitful  source  of  race 
friction,  and  that  is  the  criminal  negro.  In  general, 
the  tendency  is  always  to  judge  a  group  either  by  its 
best  or  its  worst  representatives.  Unfriendly  critics 
of  the  negro  too  often  pick  out  the  negro  criminal 
of  the  worst  sort  as  typical  of  the  race.  Defenders 
of  the  race  are  apt  to  judge  it  entirely  in  terms  of  its 

1  Garner,  "Race  Friction  Between  Black  and  White,"  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  XIII,  p.  829. 


138  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

noblest  representatives,  uncritically  ignoring  the  fact 
that  these  are  often  not  true  negroes  at  all.1  There 
is,  however,  a  type  of  negro  criminal  which,  to  be  sure, 
is  a  very  small  part  of  the  negroes  as  a  race  or  even  of 
the  negro  criminal  class.  Yet  the  unusual  and  ab- 
horrent character  of  the  crimes  it  is  guilty  of  exag- 
gerates its  importance  and  undoubtedly  exerts  a 
powerful  influence  in  increasing  race-friction.  The 
unspeakable  brutality  and  bestiality  of  criminals  of 
the  Sam  Hose  or  Paul  Reed  and  Will  Cato  type 2 
fill  the  minds  of  the  whites  with  intense  horror 
and  loathing.  The  tendency  is  to  place  these  char- 
acters in  a  category  entirely  to  themselves  and  utterly 
without  the  pale  of  human  sympathy  or  even  of  civili- 
sation. This  explains  in  part  the  inhuman  and  fiend- 
ish forms  of  retaliation  of  which  they  are  often  the 
victims.  The  violence  of  the  offence  betrays  the 
community  into  laying  aside  temporarily  the  stately 
forms  of  civilisation  and  descending  to  the  level  of 
the  brute  that  has  incensed  it. 

Such,  indeed,  might  be  the  feeling  toward  a  white 
guilty  of  a  like  crime.  In  the  case  of  the  negro,  how- 
ever, the  situation  is  complicated  by  the  eternal 
race  element.  Such  crimes  are  instinctively  recog- 

1  See  Stone,  "The  Mulatto  Factor  in  the  Race  Problem,"  Studies 
in  the  American  Race  Problem,  p.  427. 

2  Baker,  Following  the  Color  Line,  pp.  179  5. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  139 

nised  by  both  groups  as  direct  assaults  upon  the  racial 
integrity  of  the  white  at  its  most  vital  point,  for  the 
white  woman  has  always  been  and  doubtless  will 
indefinitely  remain  the  citadel  of  the  white  race's 
purity.  It  has  been  suggested  that  often  the  negro 
criminal  intentionally  asserts  in  this  brutal  and 
fiendish  fashion  his  revolt  against  the  colour  line. 
However  that  may  be,  the  fact  remains  that  the  imme- 
diate parties  concerned  are  at  once  merged  into  the 
larger  interracial  question.  The  result  is  the  creation 
of  a  feeling  of  "morbid  and  exaggerated  solidarity" 
in  the  two  groups.  The  white,  under  the  impulse 
of  a  blind  but  powerful  instinct  of  group  self-preser- 
vation, which  is  prerational  and  premoral  in  the 
evolution  of  the  race,  feels  that  the  ordinary  processes 
of  law  are  utterly  inadequate  and  hence  under  the 
form  of  mob  law  often  reverts  to  a  more  primitive 
and  supposedly  more  effective  method  of  punishment. 
The  negro  group  also  instinctively  recognises  the 
larger  interests  at  stake  and,  prompted  by  the  same 
impulse  to  group  self-preservation,  refuses  to  cooperate 
in  the  apprehension  of  the  criminal  and  often  protects 
him.  This  inclination  of  even  the  law-abiding  ele- 
ment of  the  negroes  to  shield  the  criminal  but  exag- 
gerates the  race-feeling  of  the  white  so  that  all  negroes, 
good  and  bad,  are  merged  into  one  class  and  where 
the  real  culprit  cannot  immediately  be  found  inno- 


140  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

cent  victims  are  sometimes  sacrificed  to  satisfy  an 
undiscriminating  race-hatred.1 

The  psychological  effect  of  these  occasional  attacks 
of  the  negro  criminal  upon  the  racial  integrity  of  the 
white  is,  therefore,  out  of  all  proportion  to  their 
frequency  or  the  numbers  of  either  race  immediately 
concerned.  Perhaps  the  worst  phase  of  it  is  that 
the  contagion  of  race-hatred  extends  this  extralegal 
method  of  punishment  to  other  crimes,  such  as  murder 
or  assault,  where  race-integrity  is  by  no  means  so 
immediately  concerned  as  in  rape.  The  ultimate 
effect  of  this  intensified  race-antipathy  is  to  place 
the  one  race,  and  of  course  the  weaker,  outside  the 
circle  of  sympathies  and  feelings  of  social  solidarity 
which  assure  to  even  the  lowest  white  offender  a  legal 
trial.  For  the  same  reason  that  the  clanless  man  in 
primitive  society  has  no  rights,  so  social  ostracism  or 
caste  discrimination,  especially  when  based  upon 
fundamental  racial,  economic,  and  social  differences, 
tends  toward  a  denial  of  equal  rights  to  a  member  of 
a  different  and  subordinate  group.  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  the  presence  in  southern  communities  in 
large  numbers  of  a  racially  diverse  and  socially  in- 

1  For  an  excellent  discussion  of  this  phase  of  the  race  question  see 
Alexander  C.  King,  "Lynching  as  a  Penalty,"  in  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Southern  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  the  Study  of  Race  Conditions  and 
Problems  in  the  South,  session  of  1900,  at  Montgomery,  Alabama, 
pp. 1 60  ff. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  14! 

efficient  group,  guilty  occasionally  of  these  terrible 
crimes  against  the  white,  subjects  the  instincts  for 
law  and  order  and  the  powers  of  self-control  of  the 
dominant  group  to  a  fearful  strain.  The  situation 
can  hardly  be  realised  by  the  complacent  critic  who 
speaks  from  the  midst  of  a  community  where  racial 
homogeneity,  complete  social  solidarity,  and  the  conse- 
quent intelligent  and  loyal  recognition  of  the  social 
sanctions  by  all  insure  a  self-poised  social  mind  in  the 
face  of  criminal  outbursts  and  an  almost  automatic 
execution  of  the  rights  of  the  individuals  concerned. 

The  discussion  of  the  exceeding  sensitiveness  of  the 
white  race  to  attacks  upon  its  womanhood  by  negroes 
brings  us  to  a  factor  of  fundamental  importance  for 
the  understanding  of  race-antipathy,  namely,  the 
taboo  placed  upon  mixed  marriages.  Natural  selec- 
tion seems  to  have  evolved  at  an  early  stage  in  the 
development  of  animal  life  instincts  which  prevent 
the  mating  of  different  species.  This  instinctive 
aversion  of  one  species  for  the  other  is  nature's  method 
of  securing  permanence  of  type  even  before  the 
appearance  of  conscious  choice  as  a  factor.1  Quasi- 
instinctive  forces  are  also  present  among  savages 
which  operate  to  perpetuate  the  group  type.  We 

1  Westermarck,  The  History  of  Human  Marriage,  p.  278.  See  also 
Weatherly,  "Race  and  Marriage,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  XV, 
PP-  433  ff. 


142  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

have  already  alluded  to  the  instinctive  aversion  to  the 
strange  or  unusual  in  physical  appearance  or  dress, 
which  results  in  the  emergence  within  each  group  of 
standards  of  beauty  embodying  the  characteristics 
of  dress  or  physiognomy  in  each  case.  Woman  is 
undoubtedly  the  chief  conservator  of  these  group 
types,  owing  to  the  very  important  part  she  plays  in 
sexual  selection.1  Among  primitive  peoples,  however, 
marriage  is  so  hedged  about  with  a  mass  of  custom  and 
tradition  that  there  is  little  exercise  of  free  choice. 

With  the  growth  in  culture  the  primitive  customs 
that  were  once  measured  by  the  extent  of  the  tribe 
or  clan  and  consisted  of  fixed  semi-instinctive  group 
habits,  become  enriched  and  indefinitely  expanded 
until  they  are  commensurate  with  a  race  or  a  civilisa- 
tion. The  social  heritage  which  the  modern  culti- 
vated man  has  lived  into  the  fabric  of  his  personality 
may  be  shot  through  with  "social  copy"  which  he 
has  garnered  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  or  from  long 
past  civilisations.  He  may  indeed  set  up  as  the  goal 
of  his  cultural  development  the  old  Stoic  adage  homo 
sum:  humani  nihil  a  me  alienum  puto.  But  he  can 
never  become  such  a  colourless  cosmopolite  as  to  di- 
vest himself  entirely  of  the  traces  of  race  and  local 
environment.  In  fact,  it  will  be  found  that  in  the 
vast  majority  of  instances  the  value  of  his  contribu- 
1  Westermarck,  op.  cit.,  chapter  on  "The  Sexual  Selection  of  Man." 


RACE-PREJUDICE  143 

tion  to  the  world  will  depend  directly  upon  the 
definiteness  with  which  he  is  identified  with  a  race 
or  people.  The  great  ^contributors  to  culture  and 
human  progress  have  always  had  back  of  them  the 
temperamental  characteristics  of  a  pronounced  racial 
type.  This  is  true,  for  example,  of  the  art  of  Greece, 
the  jurisprudence  of  Rome,  the  philosophy  of  Ger- 
many, or  the  poetry  of  England.  The  larger  social 
self  of  the  cultured  modern  may  indeed  present  often- 
times a  variegated  appearance,  but  underneath  it 
all  one  can  still  detect  an  ethnic  background  of  race 
traits  and  temperament  which  alone  harmonises 
the  complex  elements  as  does  the  background  of  a 
picture  and  gives  to  the  intangible  thing  we  call  per- 
sonality "a  local  habitation  and  a  name." 

Continuity  of  culture,  then,  depends  in  a  very  pro- 
found sense  upon  the  continuity  of  the  racial  type 
of  which  that  culture  is  the  expression.  Race  in  its 
widest  sense  is,  like  the  individual,  a  psychophysical 
unity.  This  continuity  of  race  type,  of  course,  can 
only  be  attained  through  control  of  marriage  rela- 
tions. In  primitive  society  custom  and  taboo  de- 
termine, in  a  partly  rational  way,  to  be  sure,  but 
with  infallible  certainty,  the  persistence  of  race  and 
of  culture  ;  in  modern  society,  however,  we  seem  more 
or  less  at  the  mercy  of  personal  whim  and  inclina- 
tion. The  element  of  personal  freedom  emphasised 


144  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

in  a  democracy  must  necessarily  introduce  into 
marriage  as  a  social  institution  a  large  degree  of  variety 
in  choice.  Personal  inclination  and  tastes,  the  ro- 
mantic sentiment  of  youth,  or  even  aesthetic  feeling 
may  all  play  their  part  in  the  selection  of  a  mate,  and 
it  is  well,  perhaps,  that  they  do.  Broad  culture  and 
wide  sympathies  may  even  lead  to  unions  between 
persons  representing  extremes  in  the  general  ethnic 
group. 

There  are,  however,  forces  at  work  which  tend  to 
limit  even  the  modern  in  his  choice  of  a  mate.  So  far 
as  the  subject  has  been  investigated,  these  forces 
seem  to  be  essentially  the  same  as  those  instinctive 
predilections  that  guarantee  permanence  of  race  and 
culture  among  primitive  men.  The  feeling  of  ethnic 
solidarity  and  sympathy  of  which  the  individual  is 
often  entirely  unconscious  and  the  cumulative  effect 
of  race  traditions  and  customs  still  influence  in  a 
thousand  subtle  ways  the  entrance  upon  the  marriage 
relation.  Investigators  have  found  distinct  evidence 
of  homogamy  or  assortative  marriage  among  the 
population  of  England.1  Local  racial  differences, 
which  have  not  yet  entirely  disappeared,  tend,  just 
as  in  primitive  forms  of  group  life,  to  restrict  marriage 

1  A.  J.  Harris,  "Assortative  Mating,"  Popular  Science  Monthly, 
May,  1912,  pp.  476  ff.  Weatherly,  "Race  and  Marriage,"  American 
Journal  of  Sociology,  XV,  p.  439. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  145 

to  those  within  the  same  neighbourhood  and  having 
similar  racial  characteristics.  Here  the  old  primi- 
tive aversion  for  what  departs  in  a  striking  way  from 
the  group  type  operates  to  secure  continuity  of  race 
and  culture  in  spite  of  the  effect  of  centuries  of  civili- 
sation. 

In  an  enlightened  and  self-conscious  community 
there  is  a  very  important  sense  in  which  the  group 
mind  is  consciously  reflected  in  the  choices  individuals 
express  in  the  marriage  relation.  The  group  mind 
of  the  primitive  man  was  only  vaguely  aware  of  the 
intent  to  conserve  the  group  type,  and  with  it  the 
basis  of  the  group  culture,  in  its  insistence  upon  the 
observance  of  custom  and  taboo  in  regard  to  marriage. 
In  modern  society,  where  there  is  a  much  clearer 
apprehension  of  the  interests  involved,  the  powerful 
influence  of  public  sentiment,  expressed  indeed  in 
conventions  and  social  habits  and  yet  distinctly 
aware  of  its  purpose,  is  everywhere  in  evidence  con- 
trolling the  choices  of  the  contracting  parties.  Society 
recognises  that  the  interests  and  inclinations  of  the 
parties  immediately  concerned  should  be  subor- 
dinated to  the  larger  interests  of  the  group.  It  is 
distinctly  aware  of  the  fundamental  importance, 
for  the  welfare  and  continued  existence  of  the  group's 
life,  of  conserving  the  hereditary  racial  basis  which  is 
the  bearer  of  the  group  culture.  The  social  condemna- 

*-« 


146  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

tion  of  the  union  of  whites  and  negroes  is  a  mani- 
festation of  this  demand  that  group  integrity  be 
preserved.  Such  an  intermingling  of  blood  implies 
a  vast  deal  more  than  the  union  of  the  two  persons 
concerned.  It  would  inevitably  bring  in  time  a 
profound  modification  of  the  cultural  ideals  of  the 
white  through  the  resulting  transformation  of  the 
ethnic  background  of  those  ideals.  The  loss  of  this 
"self-conscious  ethnic  personality,"  this  self-poised 
psychophysical  entity,  which  makes  a  civilisation 
possible,  would  be  a  serious  disaster.1 

Hence  prejudice  against   colour  may  in   its   last  ;  j? 
analysis  be  prompted  by  laudable  instincts  of  group 
self-preservation.     Race-friction  may  be  due  to  an  ;JJT 
inevitable  conflict  between  group  values  as  they  find 
concrete  embodiment  in  two  diverse  races.  y  Where  - 
races  differ  so  greatly  that  the  result  of  amalgamation  - 
is  neither  the  one  type  nor  the  other,  but  a  confusion  £ 
of  the  two,  the  race  that  has  the  most  at  stake  resists  *- 
it  as  meaning  ultimately  the  dissipation  of  its  cultural  -  f 
identity  and  the  cheapening  of  all  that  makes  its 
future  worth  living  for.  j  It  is  no  accident  of  history  *\ 
that  mongrel  peoples  are  almost  always  characterised   * 
by  instability  of  political  institutions   and   a   gen-v  " 
eral  inchoateness  of  civilisation. 

It  is  certain,  then,  that  there  is  much  inarticulate 
1  Weatherly,  op.  tit.,  p.  449. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  147 

wisdom  in  the  race  antipathy  which  the  uncritical 
humanitarian  would  class  with  the  fear  of  mice  and 
rats.  >  To  be  sure,  it  often  seems  stubbornly  irrational 
and  even  flagrantly  undemocratic.  A  young  white 
woman,  a  graduate  of  a  great  university  of  the  far 
North,  where  negroes  are  seldom  seen,  resented  it 
most  indignantly  when  she  was  threatened  with  social 
ostracism  in  a  city  farther  South  with  a  large  negro 
population  because  she  insisted  upon  receiving  on 
terms  of  social  equality  a  negro  man  who  was  her 
classmate.  The  logic  of  the  social  mind  in  this  case 
was  something  as  follows.  When  society  permits  the 
free  social  intercourse  of  two  young  persons  of  similar 
training  and  interests,  it  tacitly  gives  its  consent  to 
the  possible  legitimate  results  of  such  relations, 
namely,  marriage.  But  marriage  is  not  a  matter 
that  concerns  the  contracting  parties  alone;  it  is 
social  in  its  origin  and  from  society  comes  its  sanc- 
tions. It  is  society's  legitimatised  method  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  race  in  the  larger  and  inclusive 
sense  of  a  continuous  racial  type  which  shall  be  the 
bearer  of  a  continuous  and  progressive  civilisation. 
There  are,  however,  within  the  community  two  racial 
groups  of  such  widely  divergent  physical  and  psychic 
characteristics  that  the  blending  of  the  two  destroys 
the  purity  of  the  type  of  both  and  introduces  confu- 
sion —  the  result  of  the  blend  is  a  mongrel.  The 


148  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

preservation  of  the  unbroken,  self-conscious  existence 
of  the  white  or  dominant  ethnic  group  is  synonymous 
with  the  preservation  of  all  that  has  meaning  and 
inspiration  in  its  past  and  hope  for  its  future.  It 
forbids  by  law,  therefore,  or  by  the  equally  effective 
social  taboo,  anything  that  would  tend  to  contaminate 
the  purity  of  its  stock  or  jeopardise  the  integrity  of  its 
,  social  heritage. 

The  presence  of  a  large  element  with  more  or  less 
mixed  blood  cannot  be  taken  as  proof  that  the  basis 
of  this  race  antipathy  is  essentially  superficial,  for  this 
intermingling  has  taken  place  in  direct  opposition  to 
the  social  sanctions  of  both  groups.  The  impulses 
that  have  brought  about  this  fusion  are  not  essen- 
tially different  from  those  exhibited  in  the  mating 
of  animals  of  different  breeds.  They  cannot  be 
cited  against  a  legitimate  race  antipathy  and  in  favour 
of  race  amalgamation,  unless,  of  course,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  place  the  sanctions  of  human  society  on  the 
same  level  with  that  of  the  brutes.  It  is  one  of  the 
curious  illustrations  of  the  mental  distortion  aroused 
by  the  discussion  of  this  vexed  race-question  that 
writers  often  seem  inclined  to  find  in  these  evidences 
of  the  triumph  of  the  animal  in  both  races  a  rational 
justification  for  race  fusion.  The  ultimate  issue  at 
stake  is  not  altered  by  the  fact  that  in  this  clandestine 
fashion  white  blood  has  found  its  way  into  the  veins 


RACE-PREJUDICE  149 

of  a  few  illustrious  individuals,  classed  as  negroes, 
but  in  reality  belonging  to  neither  ethnic  group. 
^  The  fundamental  incompatibilities  of  racial  temper- 
ament and  tradition  which  operate  to  make  the  great 
majority  of  actual  unions  between  the  two  groups  un- 
happy and  the  fact  that  many  of  those  who  do  enter 
upon  these  unions  belong  to  the  criminal  or  anti- 
social element  of  both  groups  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate that  the  condemnation  of  such  unions  by  the 
better  elements  of  both  races  has  a  substantial  basis. 
Hoffman,  who  investigated  some  thirty-seven  mixed 
relations,  found  that  of  the  eight  white  men  living 
with  coloured  women  only  four  were  lawfully  mar- 
rie4-  "One  man  had  killed  another  for  insulting 
remarks  concerning  his  negro  wife,  one  stabbed  his 
mistress  in  a  fit  of  jealousy,  one  was  stabbed  and 
horribly  burned  by  vitriol  by  his  colored  mistress, 
one  killed  his  colored  mistress  by  slow  poison  to 
obtain  possession  of  her  property,  the  ill-gotten  gains 
from  a  house  of  ill  fame.  The  others  were  more 
or  less  outcasts."  l 

Out  of  the  nineteen  white  women  living  with  negroes 
in  lawful  marriage,  "four  were  known  prostitutes, 
two  were  guilty  of  bigamy,  four  either  sued  for  divorce 
or  had  deserted  their  husbands,"  while  only  five  were 
living  in  respectable  and  seemingly  contented  wedlock 

1  Race  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the  American  Negro,  p.  204. 


150  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

with  their  husbands.  Out  of  the  twenty-nine  coloured 
men  living  with  white  women,  "only  one,  an  indus- 
trious barber,  was  known  to  be  of  good  character." 
Out  of  the  total  of  twenty-nine  white  women  living 
with  negroes,  twelve  were  prostitutes,  three  were  of 
criminal  repute,  two  died  by  the  hand  of  their  coloured 
husbands,  one  committed  suicide,  one  was  insane, 
two  sued  for  divorce,  and  two  deserted  their  husbands, 
five  seemed  satisfied,  and  information  as  to  the  other 
four  was  not  to  be  had.1  To  this  grewsome  tale  may 
be  added  the  recent  suicide  of  the  white  wife  of  the 
negro  pugilist,  Jack  Johnson,  who  assigned  as  her 
reason  loneliness  and  unhappiness.  She  was  herself 
divorced  from  a  former  husband  and  though  seemingly 
of  sporting  antecedents,  neither  the  diamonds  and 
barbaric  luxury  of  her  life  nor  the  glory  of  being 
the  wife  of  the  world's  greatest  bruiser  could  compen- 
sate for  the  violation  of  the  social  taboo.  There  is 
evidence  that  the  great  majority  of  white  women  who 
marry  negroes  belong  to  the  lower  classes  or  are  often 
foreigners.  Interracial  marriages  seem  to  be  decreas- 
ing even  in  the  cities  of  the  North,  and  that  in  spite 
of  the  fact  of  the  absence  of  laws  against  them  and 
the  increasing  number  of  negroes.  The  mixed  mar- 
riages in  Boston  decreased  from  thirty-five  in  1900 
to  nineteen  in  190  $.2 

1  Op  tit.,  pp.  205,  206.  *  Baker,  Following  the  Color  Line,  p.  1 7  2. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  151 

The  attitude  of  the  negro  "intellectuals"  upon  this 
question  of  intermarriage  of  whites  and  blacks  is  full 
of  real  or  implied  contradictions.  There  is  an  inclina- 
tion on  the  one  hand  to  insist  that  the  right  of  inter- 
marriage is  unalterable  and  inalienable  and  guaran- 
teed by  the  constitution.  A  prominent  negro  editor 
declares,  "To  outlaw  the  right  of  a  black  man  to 
marry  a  white  woman  by  State  or  Federal  legislation 
is  to  abridge  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  which  is  prohibited  to  the  States 
by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution." A  moment  later,  however,  he  concedes, 
"  It  may  be  best  and  wisest  for  people  to  marry  within 
their  race  lines."  l  In  the  same  fashion  Dr.  DuBois 
acknowledges  that  "the  average  white  person  does 
not  marry  a  negro  and  that  the  average  negro, 
despite  his  theory,  himself  marries  one  of  his  own  race 
and  frowns  darkly  on  his  fellows  unless  they  do  like- 
wise." But  this  same  writer  contends  that  "the negro 
as  a  free  American  citizen  must  just  as  strenuously 
maintain  that  marriage  is  a  private  contract  and  that 
given  two  persons  of  proper  age  and  economic  ability 
who  agree  to  enter  into  that  relation,  it  does  not  con- 
cern any  one  but  themselves  as  to  whether  one  of  them 
be  white,  black,  or  red."  2 

1  See  editorial,  "Marriage  of  Whites  and  Blacks,"  in  the  negro  paper 
the  New  York  Age,  Dec.  19,  1912. 

2  The  Philadelphia  Negro,  pp.  358  ff. 


152  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

Apart  from  the  question  as  to  whether  marriage  is 
"a  private  contract" — we  have  seen,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  it  is  preeminently  a  social  institution  and 
depends  upon  social  sanctions  for  its  very  life  and 
sanctity  —  the  further  interesting  question  can  be 
raised  as  to  the  wisdom  or  the  right  of  any  act  that 
is  condemned  by  the  better  element  of  both  white 
and  black  groups.  When  "theoretical  argument 
comes  to  an  unpleasant  standstill"  of  this  sort, 
common-sense  would  suggest  that  there  is  something 
radically  wrong  with  the  argument.  This  tendency 
manifested  at  times  by  cultured  mulattoes  to  ex- 
press sentiments  in  opposition  to  both  white  and 
black  groups  is  possibly  the  result  of  a  curious  sort 
of  social  decentralisation  of  their  life  and  thought, 
due  to  the  fact  that  they  are  thoroughly  identified 
with  neither  group.  The  real  animus  of  these  writers 
is  opposition  to  all  abridgment  of  the  negro's  social 
and  legal  status  and  the  desire  for  that  which  is  the 
inevitable  result  of  an  unabridged  status,  namely, 
amalgamation. 

Our  discussion  would  be  incomplete  without 
mention  of  what  is  perhaps  the  most  potent  factor 
for  race  friction  as  well  as  for  race  harmony, 
namely,  the  mulatto.  Professor  Kelly  Miller,  a 
negro,  in  a  toast  to  Dr.  Booker  Washington,  a 
mulatto,  once  said:  "You  have  the  attention  of  the 


RACE-PREJUDICE  153 

white  world;  you  have  the  pass-key  to  the  heart 
of  the  great  white  race.  Your  commanding  position, 
your  personal  prestige,  and  the  magic  influence  of 
your  illustrious  name  entail  upon  you  the  responsi- 
bility to  become  the  leader  of  the  people,  to  stand  as 
daysman  between  us  and  the  great,  white  god,  and  lay  a 
propitiating  hand  upon  us  both."1  This  is  a  splendid 
tribute  to  the  work  of  one  great  mulatto  in  bringing 
the  two  races  together,  but  the  same  talents  might 
have  been  used  as  effectively  in  keeping  the  races 
apart.  The  unique  position  and  hence  the  peculiar 
influence  of  the  mulatto  on  all  racial  questions  is  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  blood  of  both  races  courses  in  his 
veins.  Biologically  he  belongs  to  both  and  yet  to 
neither,  and  corresponding  to  the  anomaly  of  his 
physical  traits  is  his  social  status.  He  is  a  Zwischen- 
Ding  ethnologically  and  socially.  To  be  sure,  the 
colour  line  insists  upon  numbering  him  with  the  negroes 
and  not  a  few  of  the  blunders  and  conflicting  opinions 
upon  the  negro  are  due  to  the  uncritical  acceptance 
of  this  loose  classification.2  But  so  to  classify  him 
does  not  change  the  unalterable  facts  of  his  constitution 
nor  can  it  eradicate  the  natural  desire  to  be  like  the 
dominant  race,  which  doubtless  all  mulattoes  share.3 

1  Race  Adjustment,  p.  26. 

2  Stone,  Studies  in  the  American  Race  Problem,  pp.  425  ff. 
1  Baker,  Following  the  Color  Line,  p.  158. 


154  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

He  naturally  first  winces  at  the  drawing  of  the  colour 
line,  for  to  insist  upon  it  strictly  would  result  in  reading 
him  out  of  both  groups.  He  thus  becomes  a  social  surd. 

Naturally,  then,  it  is  from  the  mulatto  that  the  most 
vigorous  protests  arise  against  race  discrimination. 
The  negro  of  pure  blood,  especially  in  the  far  South, 
is  naturally  unambitious,  tractable,  and  easily  satis- 
fied. He  does  not  lie  awake  at  night  brooding  over 
the  loss  of  inalienable  human  rights.  Politics  have 
no  great  charm  for  him  and  "grandfather  clauses" 
or  questions  of  civil  rights  seldom  disturb  his  prim- 
rose path.  He  does  not  look  upon  the  "Jim  Crow" 
car  as  a  humiliation  and  the  writer's  observation  is 
that  the  freedom  of  a  car  of  his  own  colour  is  infinitely 
preferable  to  one  where  the  presence  of  members 
of  the  white  race  would  be  felt  as  a  restraint.  When 
protests  do  come,  they  are  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases  from  mulattoes.  It  has  been  said  that  "if 
the  statutes  of  those  states  which  have  been  charged 
with  discriminating  against  the  negro  were  not  in 
any  wise  enforcible  against  the  mulatto,  .  .  . 
America's  race  problem  would  speedily  resolve  itself 
into  infinitely  simpler  proportions."  1 

The  atmosphere  in  which  the  mulatto  lives  is  not 
one  that  is  psychologically  healthful.  It  is  an  at- 
mosphere of  protest;  the  mulatto  is  himself  an  in- 

1  Stone,  op.  cil.,  p.  433. 


RACE-PREJUDICE  155 

carnated  protest  against  the  racial  separation  of  the 
colour  line.  Dr.  DuBois  has  given  us  a  glimpse  into 
the  dualism  of  soul  from  which  this  spirit  of  protest 
arises.  "It  is  a  peculiar  sensation,  this  double- 
consciousness,  this  sense  of  always  looking  at  one's 
self  through  the  eyes  of  others,  of  measuring  one's 
soul  by  the  tape  of  a  world  that  looks  on  in  amused 
contempt  and  pity.  One  ever  feels  his  two-ness,  — 
an  American,  a  negro,  two  souls,  two  thoughts,  two 
unreconciled  strivings;  two  warring  ideals  in  one 
dark  body,  whose  dogged  strength  alone  keeps  it 
from  being  torn  asunder."  It  would  of  course  be 
committing  the  psychologist's  fallacy  upon  a  gigantic 
scale  to  read  the  ideas  of  The  Souls  of  Black  Folk  into 
the  minds  of  the  masses  of  the  negroes  of  the  South, 
and  yet  it  doubtless  voices  the  feelings  of  a  cultured 
few  largely  of  the  mulatto  class.  The  state  of  mind 
it  reflects  is  not  a  happy  one  since  it  breathes  of  pessi- 
mism and  half -concealed  race  hatred.  DuBois  tells 
us  how  as  a  boy,  when  he  realised  that  he  lived 
"within  the  veil,"  he  was  happiest  when  he  excelled 
his  pale-faced  mates  in  his  books,  at  a  foot-race,  or 
even  when  he  would  "beat  their  stringy  heads." 
As  the  years  brought  widening  knowledge  and  a  fuller 
realisation  of  the  odds  that  were  against  him  and  his 
race  in  the  fight,  he  describes  how  "the  shades  of  the 
prison  house  closed  round  about  us  all :  walls  straight 


156  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

and  stubborn  to  the  whitest,  but  relentlessly  narrow, 
tall  and  unscalable  to  sons  of  night  who  must  plod 
darkly  on  in  resignation,  or  beat  unavailing  palms 
against  the  stone,  or  steadily,  half-hopelessly,  watch 
the  streak  of  blue  above."1 

It  is  not  an  unmitigated  blessing  that  those  whose 
thought  is  so  strongly  tinged  with  pessimism  and 
antagonism  to  the  white  race  should  set  themselves 
to  be  the  spiritual  leaders  of  the  negro.  With  in- 
creasing education  and  wealth  the  negro  will  inevitably 
come  to  read  and  reflect  more  upon  the  problems  that 
concern  his  group  welfare.  It  is  imperative,  there- 
fore, that  his  intellectual  leaders  supply  him  with 
ideals  that  shall  inspire  him  with  honest  race  pride 
and  encourage  more  sympathetic  relations  with  the 
whites.  The  militant  race  philosophy  preached 
by  a  certain  group  of  negro  writers  and  thinkers  is 
not  one  that  the  sincere  friend  of  the  negro  would 
like  to  see  him  adopt.  Another  great  mulatto  has 
written  a  book  called  The  Future  of  the  American 
Negro,  the  characteristic  note  of  which  is  its  buoyant 
optimism  and  faith  in  both  white  and  black.  The 
question  as  to  the  presence  or  absence  of  friction  be- 
tween the  races  in  the  future,  so  far  as  the  mulatto  is 
concerned,  will  depend  upon  the  extent  to  which  the 
one  or  the  other  of  these  two  points  of  view  domi- 
nates the  thought  of  the  negro. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  COLOUR  LINE  * 

THE  term  "  the  colour  line  "  has  come  to  be  a  compre- 
hensive designation  for  all  the  varied  means  made 
use  of  by  the  white  group  to  effect  the  racial  segrega- 
tion of  the  negro.  Its  ultimate  explanation  is  to 
be  found  in  those  forces  making  for  racial  antipathy, 
the  most  fundamental  of  which  as  we  have  seen  is 
the  refusal  of  social  sanction  to  intermarriage.  The 
term  is  particularly  obnoxious  to  many  negro  leaders 
and  for  reasons  which  can  be  easily  understood.  In 
their  criticisms,  however,  they  seem  to  ignore  the 
deep-lying  racial  factors  involved  and  inveigh  against 
it  as  a  flagrant  violation  of  the  principles  of  American 
democracy  as  defined  in  our  federal  constitution. 
It  is  viewed  as  essentially  southern  in  origin  and  spirit, 
the  aftermath  of  slavery,  and  all  manifestations  of  it 
in  the  North  are  explained  as  infusions  of  southern 
prejudices.  A  typical  illustration  is  the  general  ten- 
dency of  the  negro  press  to  see  in  the  recent  intro- 
duction into  the  legislatures  of  the  northern  states  of 

1  This  chapter  appeared  in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
Nov.,  1913. 

157 


158  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

bills  against  the  intermarriage  of  whites  and  blacks 
an  indication  of  southern  influence.1  In  view  of  ex- 
isting differences  of  opinion,  it  is  perhaps  well  to  raise 
the  question  as  to  just  what  is  involved  in  the  colour 
line.  What  is  its  origin  and  what  its  significance  as 
a  social  phenomenon  ? 

Wherever  the  white  of  English  stock  has  been 
brought  into  contact  with  masses  of  negroes  and  how- 
ever the  geographic,  economic,  or  political  conditions 
have  differed,  we  find  two  great  outstanding  facts 
always  present,  namely,  the  stubborn  refusal  of 
the  white  to  sanction  race  fusion  and  the  strenuous 
insistence  upon  the  supremacy  of  his  group  ideals. 
Extraneous  public  sentiment  and  the  demands  of  a 
theoretical  democracy  have  never  been  able  to  swerve 
the  local  white  group  from  settling  all  interracial 
questions  upon  this  basis.  The  attitude  of  the  whites 
of  the  southern  states  finds  a  parallel  in  the  bearing 
of  the  English  toward  backward  races  of  the  colonies, 
and  particularly  in  the  relations  of  whites  and  blacks 
in  South  Africa. 

Where  racial  contact  without  fusion  occurs,  there 
are,  according  to  Bryce,  three  possibilities.2  In  the 

1  See  the  editorial,  "The  Race  Marriage  Question,"  in  the  negro 
paper,  the  New  York  Age,  Feb.  26,  1913 ;   also  the  editorial  for  Feb. 
27,  "Shall  the  South  Rule  the  Nation?" 

2  Relations  of  the  Advanced  and  Backward  Races,  the  Romanes 
Lecture  for  1902,  pp.  28  ff. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR    LINE         159 

case  of  tropical  or  semi-tropical  countries  the  white 
often  rules  a  people  as  a  military  dependency  or  under 
a  paternalistic  government.  This  is  the  situation  in 
Java  under  the  Dutch,  and  in  Jamaica  under  the 
paternalistic  regime  of  the  English,  where,  perhaps, 
the  relations  of  negro  and  white  are  the  most  amicable 
to  be  found  anywhere.  Again,  it  sometimes  happens 
that  a  people  of  different  stock  enters  territory  already 
occupied  by  the  white  in  search  of  employment, 
instances  of  which  are  the  Chinese  immigrations  to  the 
Pacific  coast  and  to  Australia.  The  race  friction  to 
which  this  gives  rise  can  be  controlled  by  legislation. 
A  third  possibility  is  where  whites  and  blacks  find 
themselves  forced  by  circumstances  over  which  they 
have  no  immediate  control  to  live  side  by  side  in  large 
numbers  and  ostensibly  under  democratic  institutions. 
This  is  the  situation  in  the  southern  states  and  in 
South  Africa.  It  is  fraught  with  the  greatest  compli- 
cations and  hence  is  a  fruitful  source  of  the  race 
antagonism  manifest  in  the  "  colour  line." 

The  race  relations  in  Jamaica,  where  the  "  colour 
line  "  is  largely  lacking,  have  often  been  contrasted 
with  those  in  this  country  and  made  the  basis  of 
criticisms  of  the  American  treatment  of  the  negro. 
It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  in  Jamaica  there 
are  a  number  of  reasons  why  race  antagonism  has 
always  been  at  a  minimum,  reasons  which  vitiate 


l6o  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

entirely  the  parallel  Professor  Royce  and  others  have 
drawn  between  the  negro  in  the  South  and  in  Jamaica, 
and  upon  which  he  bases  his  kindly,  though  somewhat 
condescending,  advice  to  his  "southern  brethren."  : 
Jamaica  is  far  more  of  a  black  man's  country  than  the 
South  has  ever  been ;  there  are  over  700,000  negroes 
upon  the  island  and  something  over  15,000  whites, 
but  "these  whites  predominate  in  the  governing  and 
employing  class,  and  as  merchants  or  planters  lead 
and  direct  the  industrial  life  of  the  island." 2  In 
other  words,  there  has  never  been  a  time  since  the 
English  first  set  foot  upon  the  island  when  they  have 
not  been  complete  and  undisputed  masters  of  its 
destiny,  barring  perhaps  the  tragic  episode  of  the 
Gordon  riots  of  1865,  which  only  convinced  them  of  the 
folly  of  trying  any  other  policy.  The  "orderly,  law- 
abiding,  and  contented"  character  of  the  Jamaican 
negro  which  Professor  Royce  found  so  charming  is  the 
outcome  of  the  benevolent  paternalism  of  the  English 
regime,  the  fundamental  idea  of  which  is  the  complete 
subordination  of  the  negro  to  the  will  of  the  white. 
The  negro,  who  has  never  known  any  other  conditions, 
accepts  this  as  part  of  the  eternal  order  of  things  with 
the  result  that  the  status  of  the  ruling  white  and  that 
of  the  masses  of  the  peasant  negro  labourers  are  entirely 

1  Royce,  Race  Questions,  p.  15. 

1  Olivier,  White  Capital  and  Coloured  Labour,  p.  34. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         l6l 

separated,  and  occasion  for  friction  is  reduced  to  a 
minimum.  The  sections  of  the  South  where  there  is 
the  least  friction  between  the  races  are  found  on  the 
plantations  of  the  "black  belt,"  where,  as  in  Jamaica, 
the  negroes  outnumber  the  whites,  and  where,  the 
war  amendments  and  the  "Bill  of  Rights"  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding,  a  paternalistic  regime  is  in 
force  similar  in  many  ways  to  that  in  Jamaica. 

Again,  any  parallel  between  Jamaican  conditions 
and  the  status  of  the  negro  in  this  country  must 
recognise  a  difference  of  the  very  greatest  importance 
between  the  two  countries,  namely,  that  from  the 
emancipation  of  the  negro  to  the  present  in  the 
United  States  he  has  had  dinned  into  his  ears  the 
democratic  doctrine  of  his  inherent  equality  with  the 
white,  and  hence  his  inalienable  right  as  a  class  to  all 
the  privileges  and  emoluments  of  the  community 
on  an  equal  footing  with  the  white.  Whatever  may 
be  said  of  the  theoretical  justice  of  such  a  doctrine, 
the  fact  remains  that  never  in  the  history  of  the 
contact  of  the  white  and  the  black  races  has  such  an 
ideal  been  realised;  |east  of  q]l  hn.a  EnfflfW*,  thf> 
champion  of  freedom,  ever  made  it  the  basis  QLpracti- 
cal  relations  with  bacfrwajfl  rarps.  Nothing  would, 
doubtless,  be  more  agreeable  to  the  southerner  with 
his  nine  millions  of  negroes  than  the  establish- 
ment in  the  South  of  a  paternalistic  government 


1 62  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

similar  to  that  in  Jamaica.  But  this  would  involve 
the  utter  repudiation  of  the  spirit  if  not  the  letter  of 
the  Reconstruction  legislation  in  behalf  of  the  negro 
and  a  surrender  of  the  transcendental  conception  of 
human  rights  which  it  implies  and  which  is  to-day  the 
rallying  point  for  the  negro  contenders  for  complete 
equality  and  their  white  supporters.  It  may  be  seri- 
ously doubted  whether  Professor  Royce  is  prepared 
to  surrender  the  orthodox  conception  of  democracy 
as  it  is  embodied  in  our  political  symbols. 

Finally,  the  period  in  the  relations  of  the  two  races 
when  "English  administration"  and  "English  reti- 
cence"1 could  have  been  cultivated  successfully  be- 
longs in  all  probability  to  an  irrevocable  past.  It 
was  possible  at  the  close  of  the  war  to  have  instituted 
a  paternalistic  relation  between  freeman  and  white 
which  in  time  might  have  developed  at  the  South 
conditions  parallel  to  those  we  see  in  Jamaica  and 
with  the  same  happy  relations  between  the  races. 
The  different  southern  states  did,  in  fact,  make  an 
attempt  to  outline  some  such  regime  in  their  "black 
codes"  ;  but  the  Reconstruction  period  and  the  years 
that  have  intervened  have  built  up  totally  different 
relations  between  the  races,  and  have  instilled  into 
the  black  political  and  social  ambitions  which  it  is 
idle  to  expect  that  he  can  be  easily  induced  to  forego. 

1  Royce,  op.  tit.,  p.  22. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         163 

Out  of  this  period  of  utterly  unnecessary  race 
friction  was  born  the  "colour  line"  which  is  such  a 
rock  of  offence  to  the  ambitious  negro.  It  cannot  be 
said  that  it  was  due  to  "  the  traditional  place  which  he 
(the  negro)  has  occupied  in  the  social  scheme, "namely, 
slavery.1  Slavery  of  a  far  worse  type  than  that  of 
the  South  existed  in  Jamaica,  and  yet  there  is  no 
"colour  line"  in  this  island,  but  only  "that  natural 
antipathy  which  regulates  the  relations  of  all  widely 
separated  peoples,  the  sentinel  which  keeps  watch 
and  ward  over  the  purity  of  highly  developed  races."  2 

Nowhere  in  history  has  the  white  lived  in  contact 
with  a  backward  race  except  on  the  unconditional 
acknowledgment  of  the  supremacy  of  the  white 
group.  In  every  other  case  except  the  South  the 
white  has  justified  his  supremacy  by  definite  laws 
and  a  political  order,  as  is  shown  in  the  case  of  the 
British  West  Indies  and  South  Africa.  Under  the 
pressure  of  the  passion  and  prejudice  of  the  Recon- 
struction period,  however,  the  whites  were  to  a  large 
extent  eliminated  politically  by  a  provision  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment,  in  reality  the  first  actual 
drawing  of  the  "colour  line"  in  the  South,3  and  a 

1  K.  Miller,  Race  Adjustment,  p.  115. 

2  Livingstone,  "The  West  Indian  and  American  Negro,"  North 
American  Review,  1907,  CLXXXV,  646. 

3  Murphy,  The  Basis  of  Ascendency,  p.  7. 


1 64  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

political  regime  was  initiated  on  the  basis  of  negro 
rule.  The  constitutional  amendments  were  designed 
to  perpetuate  this  clothing  of  the  negro  with  the 
highest  political  power,  and  they  remained,  of  course, 
after  the  white  regained  home  rule. 

The  white  group  which  had  never  yet  allowed  a 
backward  or  inferior  race  to  share  in  the  shaping  of 
its  political  and  social  ideals  found  itself  facing  a  situa- 
tion of  peculiar  difficulty.  The  weaker  group,  which 
as  a  whole  had  little  or  no  comprehension  of  the  real 
issue  at  stake,  was  used  as  a  catspaw  by  unscrupulous 
leaders  who  were  supported  in  their  policy  by  the 
highest  law  of  the  land,  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
North,  and  the  military  arm  of  the  nation.  Under 
normal  conditions  the  whites  would  undoubtedly 
have  followed  the  precedent  set  by  the  English  in 
Jamaica  and  determined  by  law  the  status  of  the 
weaker  group  and  assured  the  dominance  of  the  white, 
and  hence  a  stable  social  order  under  which  the  negro 
could  have  worked  out  his  social  salvation  under  the 
tutelage  of  the  white.  This  was  impossible,  so  they 
fell  back  upon  the  more  subtle  and  powerful  force  of 
public  sentiment  and  usage  from  which  all  law  gets 
its  meaning  and  sanction.  The  law  guaranteed  to 
the  black  civil  and  political  rights  and  social  privileges 
on  an  equality  with  the  white,  but  in  a  thousand 
subtle  ways  that  really  invalidated  the  spirit  without 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         165 

breaking  the  letter  of  the  statutes  the  whites  found 
means  for  keeping  the  negro  in  a  subordinate  social 
and  political  position  and  completely  subservient  to 
the  will  of  the  dominant  group. 

The  "colour  line"  is  the  result  of  this  effort  of  the 
ruling  group  to  make  the  black  constantly  aware  of 
his  subordinate  status  and  actually  to  restrict  him 
to  it  in  the  absence  of  legal  means  for  so  doing.  The 
real  motive  here  was  not  so  much  to  humiliate  the 
black  or  to  perpetuate  the  social  habits  of  slavery. 
The  determining  factor  was  the  practical  necessity 
of  finding  and  maintaining  a  modus  vivendi  between  a 
race  with  long  training  in  the  exercise  of  democratic 
liberties  and  another  utterly  without  training  and 
forced  by  disabilities  of  its  own  to  occupy  indefi- 
nitely a  subordinate  place  in  the  social  order.  The 
problem  was  exactly  that  faced  by  the  English  in 
South  Africa,  namely,  "the  construction  of  a  govern- 
ment which,  while  democratic  as  regards  one  of  the 
races,  cannot  safely  be  made  democratic  as  regards 
the  other."  1 

After  the  long  and  costly  experiment  of  military 
coercion  in  Reconstruction,  entailing  many  acts  of 
lawlessness  and  an  outrageous  defiance  of  the  forms 
and  principles  of  a  free  democracy,  besides  engendering 
much  heart-burning  between  the  two  races,  the  masses 
1  Bryce,  Impressions  of  South  Africa,  p.  360. 


1 66  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE    FRICTION 

of  the  nation  have  slowly  come  around  to  the  common- 
sense  view  never  once  deserted  by  the  Englishman  in 
his  relations  to  the  negro  in  Jamaica  and  South  Africa, 
namely,  that  the  dominance  of  the  white  group  is  the 
prerequisite  of  anything  like  satisfactory  relations 
between  the  two  races.  Once  more  the  white  race 
has  vindicated  its  traditions  of  supremacy,  but  the  ex- 
perience was  a  costly  one  for  the  South,  the  negro, 
and  the  nation. 

The  democratic  institutions  by  which  it  was  at- 
tempted through  outside  coercion  to  hold  together 
on  a  parity  two  widely  divergent  racial  groups  were 
originally  created  on  the  supposition  of  the  ability 
of  all  members  of  the  community  to  enter  into  a 
sympathetic  understanding  of  them,  and  thus  to 
cherish  that  community  of  interests  necessary  to 
their  preservation.  The  laws  thus  recognised  no 
other  basis  of  social  cooperation  than  that  of  the 
most  comprehensive  democracy,  and  when  this  proved 
inadequate  to  the  situation  the  groups  concerned  were 
thrown  back  upon  irrational  group  instincts  in  which 
case  the  stronger  always  prevails  and  that  by  the  use 
of  means  that  are  too  often  antisocial. 

Democracy  thus  became  through  the  logic  of  events 
practically  a  carte  blanche  for  a  return  to  more  primi- 
tive social  conditions.  This  was  most  unfortunate 
for  both  groups.  It  educated  the  dominant  group 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         167 

into  antisocial  and  extra-legal  ways  of  executing  the 
social  will,  and  gave  rise  to  a  feeling  of  disrespect  for 
democratic  institutions.  It  begot  in  the  weaker  group 
a  sense  of  wrong  without  educating  it  into  a  higher 
regard  for  the  social  welfare.  The  negro's  sufferings 
became  the  fruitful  source  of  outside  sympathy  and 
even  of  much  uncritical  sentimentality  which  led  to 
an  exaggerated  feeling  of  injustice  in  the  negro  him- 
self without  in  any  way  creating  in  him  a  sane  and 
healthful  sense  of  his  own  weaknesses  and  a  regard 
for  his  social  obligations. 

The  psychological  effect  of  the  Sturm  und  Drang 
period  of  the  Reconstruction  upon  the  whites  in  the 
South  can  hardly  be  overestimated.  It  intensified 
racial  differences  and  interests  in  a  way  most  injuri- 
ous to  both  groups,  but  especially  to  the  negro.  The 
whites  of  the  South  came  out  of  it  with  the  feeling 
of  racial  solidarity  as  the  supreme  and  determining 
factor  of  their  thought  and  life.  They  have  conse- 
quently presented  for  over  half  a  century  the  most 
compact  and  doggedly  determined  section  of  the 
citizenship  of  the  nation  in  their  devotion  to  group 
ideals.  This  can  only  be  understood  when  we  re- 
member that  during  their  struggle  against  negro 
domination  "they  were  pilloried  in  public  print, 
'investigated/  time  after  time,  almost  as  a  holiday 
task,  and  'reported  on'  by  committees  of  hostile 


1 68  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

congresses.  They  were  cartooned  by  the  pen  of 
Nast,  their  every  fault  was  hunted  out  and  magnified 
and  set  on  a  hill,  for  all  the  world  to  gaze  at  as  typical 
of  a  'barbarous  people.'  Their  misfortunes  were 
paraded  as  the  well-earned  fruit  of  treason."  J 

It  took  ten  years  of  misrule  and  bitter  humiliation 
to  create  the  "solid  South,"  but  the  work  was  done 
so  thoroughly  that  it  will  in  all  probability  persist  for 
years  to  come.  It  is  a  familiar  fact  that  social  habits, 
especially  when  they  become  tinged  with  strong  emo- 
tion, are  the  last  to  change.  Claverhouse  and  the 
English  dragoons  are  gone,  but  the  Scotchman  still 
feels  an  antipathy  for  the  Church  of  England.  The 
fires  of  Smithfield  and  the  Spanish  Armada  are  matters 
of  history  only,  but  the  dislike  of  Catholicism  still 
lingers  among  the  masses  of  the  English  people.  It 
was  most  unfortunate  for  the  negro  whose  interests 
were  so  intimately  connected  with  those  of  the  white 
that  during  this  period  of  crystallisation  of  group 
feeling  he  was  not  only  excluded,  but  was  identified 
from  the  very  start  with  the  outside  forces  making 
for  the  coercion  of  the  white. 

The  difficulties  attending  the  social  integration  of 

the  negro  at  the  South  are  largely  the  heritage  of  this 

period  of  conflict  and  alienation.     Because  of  the 

extra-legal  methods  the  white  has  been  forced  to  fall 

1  Stone,  Studies  in  the  American  Race  Problem,  p.  265. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         169 

back  upon  to  maintain  his  group  supremacy,  both 
races  live  in  an  atmosphere  of  ill-defined  and  intangible 
rights  and  privileges  having  little  or  no  basis  in  exist- 
ing laws.  Consequently  the  black  is  irritated  by  the 
feeling  that  the  rights  he  really  enjoys  are  far  short 
of  those  which  seem  to  be  guaranteed  to  him  by  demo- 
cratic institutions.  He  is  tempted,  therefore,  on 
occasion  to  assert  these  technical  rights  in  defiance  of 
the  sentiment  of  the  dominant  group.  The  result 
is  very  often  the  "bumptious"  negro,  a  phenomenon 
entirely  lacking  in  Jamaica  because  there  the  condi- 
tions are  lacking  that  produce  him. 

The  white,  having  no  other  sanction  for  his  attitude 
toward  a  weaker  race  than  a  vague  public  sentiment, 
is  prone  to  be  arbitrary,  intolerant,  and  at  times 
lawless.  Since  the  sanctions  of  his  conduct  lie  in  the 
sentiments  of  the  local  community  rather  than  in  the 
nation  at  large,  he  is  abnormally  sensitive  to  outside 
criticism  and  has  the  uncomfortable  feeling  of  a  lack 
of  poise,  of  unstable  social  equilibrium,  because  his 
life  is  one  of  constant  protest  and  seemingly  unwar- 
ranted self-assertion.  All  this  the  Englishman  hast 
wisely  avoided  by  giving  legal  and  institutional  sanc- 
tion to  the  dominance  of  the  white  group  while  judi- 
ciously encouraging  those  blacks  who  show  capacity 
for  positions  of  responsibility  and  power  by  admitting 
them  to  a  limited  share  in  social  and  political  emolu- 


1 70  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

ments.  "The  social  organisation  [of  Jamaica]  is 
therefore  like  a  pyramid.  The  whites  constitute  the 
apex,  the  coloured  class  compose  the  middle  courses, 
and  the  masses  of  the  negroes  make  up  the  broad 
base."  l 

The  race  problems  of  South  Africa  throw  much 
light  upon  the  question  of  race  friction  and  social 
integration  in  this  country.  We  have  suffered  from  a 
lack  of  perspective  and  judicial  fairness  in  previous 
discussions  of  our  race  difficulties  because  we  failed 
to  compare  the  situations  here  with  similar  situations 
in  other  parts  of  the  world  where  whites  and  blacks 
are  thrown  together  in  large  numbers.  The  striking 
parallel  between  the  behaviour  of  the  whites  in  the 
South  and  in  South  Africa  in  their  dealings  with  the 
negro  suggests  that  this  race  friction  which  on  its 
face  seems  so  irrational  and  unchristian  may  have  its 
roots  deep  in  human  nature  and  may  be,  therefore, 
the  inevitable  accompaniment  of  contact  between 
divergent  race  groups. 

We  find  in  British  Africa  the  same  apparently 
childish  insistence  upon  the  acknowledgment  of  his 
superiority  by  the  white  in  every  relation  with  the 
black.  Bryce  relates  the  case  of  a  prosperous  Kafir 
for  whom  a  white  agreed  to  work  on  condition  that 
his  negro  employer  address  him  as  "boss";  the  eco- 
1  Livingstone,  Black  Jamaica,  p.  237. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         I? I 

nomic  relation  made  little  difference  so  long  as  the 
social  relation  of  superior  and  inferior  was  recognised.1 
This  seemingly  foolish  stipulation  would  be  perfectly 
intelligible  to  the  southern  white  with  whom  similar 
conditions  exist.  The  fundamental  law  of  the  Trans- 
vaal, like  the  unwritten  law  of  the  South,  declares 
that  "the  people  will  suffer  no  equality  of  the  whites 
and  blacks,  either  in  state  or  church."  All  over 
South  Africa  the  evidence  of  a  black  against  a  white 
is  seldom  received,  and  only  in  Cape  Colony  does 
he  serve  on  a  jury.  The  relations  between  the  races 
are  described  in  language  which  might  be  applied 
directly  to  southern  conditions:  "Even  the  few  edu- 
cated natives  are  too  well  aware  of  the  gulf  that  sepa- 
rates their  own  people  from  the  European  to  resent, 
except  in  specially  aggravated  cases,  the  attitude  of 
the  latter.  Each  race  goes  its  own  way  and  lives  its 
own  life."  2  The  dining  of  Dr.  Booker  T.  Washing- 
ton with  President  Roosevelt  'on  October  16,  1901, 
which  aroused  such  feeling  in  the  South  and  was  the 
text  for  much  criticism  of  that  section  by  the  northern 
press,  finds  a  curious  parallel  in  the  entertainment  of 
the  negro  prince  Khama,  "a  Christian  and  a  man  of 
high  personal  character,"  by  the  Duke  of  West- 
minster in  London,  1895,  the  news  of  which  "excited 

1  Bryce,  Impressions  of  South  Africa,  p.  367. 
*  Bryce,  op.  cit.,  p.  375. 


172  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

disgust  and  annoyance  among  the  whites  of  South 
Africa." l 

The  striking  similarity  in  the  attitude  of  the  whites 
of  English  stock  all  over  the  world  when  brought  into 
contact  with  large  numbers  of  the  negro  race  suggests 
that  we  have  to  do  ultimately  with  a  natural  con- 
trariety and  incompatibility  of  race  temperaments 
which  prevent  social  assimilation  and,  therefore, 
complete  social  solidarity.  This  would  lead  us  also 
to  expect  race  friction  to  be  most  in  evidence  where 
the  pressure  from  group  contacts  is  the  strongest. 
An  unprejudiced  examination  of  the  race  relations  in 
this  country  will  amply  support  this  assertion.  It  is 
a  fact  the  traveller  may  observe  for  himself  that  as 
he  approaches  the  "black  belt"  from  any  section  of 
the  country  the  drawing  of  the  "colour  line"  becomes 
more  and  more  unequivocal.  The  negro  enjoys 
many  privileges  in  Massachusetts,  where  he  consti- 
tutes but  i.i  per  cent  of  the  population  and  where, 
consequently,  he  is  not  present  in  numbers  strong 
enough  to  make  his  group  traits  felt,  and  where 
nevertheless  he  has  never  enjoyed  complete  social 
assimilation.  He  enjoys  fewer  privileges  in  South 
Carolina  or  Mississippi,  where  he  forms  58  per  cent 
of  the  population,  and  where,  consequently,  his  race 
traits  and  group  habits  are  a  tremendous  factor  in 
the  social  economy  to  be  reckoned  with  at  every  turn. 

1  Bryce,  op.  cit.,  p.  368. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  THE  COLOUR  LINE        173 

With  the  increasing  migration  of  negroes  from  the 
South  to  northern  cities  the  pressure  from  group 
contacts  is  inevitable,  so  that  even  in  Boston,  the 
home  of  Sumner,  Phillips,  and  Garrison,  the  "colour 
line"  is  distinctly  in  evidence.  Negroes  are  dis- 
criminated against  at  restaurants,  soda-water  stands, 
hotels,  and  even  churches,  while  there  is  a  strong 
opposition  to  renting  houses  to  negroes  in  aristocratic 
sections  —  a  fact  that  may  be  paralleled  in  all  the 
large  cities  and  one  that  throws  a  curious  side-light 
upon  the  "colour  line"  in  the  North. 

This  discrimination  has  been  especially  galling  to 
the  old  aristocratic  negro  families  of  cities  such  as 
Boston,  who  trace  their  lineage  back  to  Revolutionary 
days  and  earlier  and  who,  partly  through  sentiment 
and  partly  because  they  were  a  vanishing  element  of 
the  population  (census  statistics  seem  to  indicate 
that  the  negro  would  die  out  in  the  far  North  but  for 
the  new  blood  from  the  South),1  had  been  admitted 
to  privileges  enjoyed  by  few  of  their  race  anywhere 
else  in  the  world.  By  virtue  of  superior  culture  and 
business  associations  they  belong  to  the  white  group 
and  they  "cling  passionately  to  the  fuller  life," 
refusing  to  submit  to  the  social  ostracism  that  restricts 

1  Hoffman,  Race  Traits  and  Tendencies  of  the  American  Negro, 

PP- 35  ff. 

z  Baker,  Following  the  Color  Line,  p.  219;  also  188  ff. 


174  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

them  to  the  life  of  their  own  racial  group.  But  in 
vain,  for  the  racial  differentiations  which  were  always 
latent  are  now  brought  home  to  the  social  mind  with 
growing  emphasis  due  to  increasing  numbers.  There 
is  a  growing  tendency  in  all  large  cities  to  confine  the 
negro  to  certain  sections,  the  natural  result  of  the 

refusal  of  social  assimilation.1 
p^ 

Philadelphia,  the  city  of  brotherly  love,  has  given 

!  us  some  of  the  most  violent  exhibitions  of  race  antip- 
!  athy,  and  the  history  of  the  race  relations  in  this  city 
;  will  show  that  race  feeling  is  intimately  connected 
with  the  pressure  from  group  contacts.  At  the  time 
when  Pennsylvanians  were  nobly  supporting  the  anti- 
slavery  traditions  of  Penn  and  John  Woolman,  even  to 
the  extent  of  threatened  political  complications  with 
the  slave  states  to  the  south  because  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  laws,  the  city  of  Philadelphia  was  the  scene  in 
1834,  1835,  1838,  1848,  and  1849  °f  race  riots  against 
the  negro  of  a  peculiarly  violent  and  brutal  nature.2 
These  earlier  outbreaks  were  due  primarily  to  the  in- 
creasing number  of  negroes  in  the  state  and  particu- 

1  For  Philadelphia,  see  DuBois,  The  Philadelphia  Negro;  for  Chi- 
cago, "  Chicago  Housing  Conditions,  VI :  The  Problem  of  the  Negro," 
by  Comstock,  in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Sept.,  1912,  pp. 
241  ff. ;  for  New  York,  Ovington,  Half  a  Man,  pp.  33  ff . 

2  Turner,  The  Negro  in  Pennsylvania,  pp.  160  ff.     See  DuBois, 
The  Philadelphia  Negro,  pp.  322  ff.,  for  race-prejudice  as  it  exists 
to-day  in  Philadelphia. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY    OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         175 

larly  in  the  city ;  there  were  more  negroes  in  Pennsyl- 
vania in  1860  than  in  any  other  non-slave-holding  state. 
According  to  the  testimony  of  the  negroes  them- 
selves, however,  they  enjoy  more  privileges  in  Phila- 
delphia than  in  Baltimore  and  Washington  with  their 
still  larger  negro  populations.  The  race  relations  in 
Washington  are  particularly  instructive  in  this  con- 
nection, for  they  are  unique  in  this  country  and  in  the 
world.  There  are,  in  the  first  place,  something  like 
100,000  blacks  in  the  capital  city,  while  the  whites 
number  approximately  250,000.  In  no  other  city  of 
the  world  do  the  two  races  live  together  in  such  large 
numbers.  The  negroes  are  perhaps  the  most  cul- 
tured and  progressive  to  be  found  anywhere  among 
the  race  to-day.  In  no  other  section  of  the  country 
is  there  as  much  of  the  tolerant  and  even  indulgent 
attitude  toward  the  negro  as  the  ward  of  the  nation. 
The  spirit  of  Sumner  is  still  in  evidence,  not  only  on 
the  front  of  public  school  buildings,  but  also  in  the 
free  intermingling  of  the  races  in  the  street  cars  and 
at  public  gatherings.  The  political  situation  is  the 
best  imaginable  for  the  amicable  relations  of  the 
races,  for  since  the  disastrous  breakdown  of  repre- 
sentative government  and  the  substitution  of  com- 
mission government  in  1878,  owing  to  the  corrupt 
and  irresponsible  negro  vote,1  practically  all  source 

1  Ingle,  The  Negro  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  pp.  64  ff. 


1 76  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

of  friction  between  the  races  along  group  lines  has 
disappeared. 

But  the  "colour  line"  is  unmistakably  present.  It 
is  in  evidence  at  the  restaurants,  the  theatres,  the 
drinking  founts  of  drug  stores,  the  hotels,  in  school, 
and  in  church.  The  two  races  live  and  move  and 
have  their  being  in  widely  divergent  spheres.  Aside 
from  the  legalisation  of  the  "colour  line,"  the  segrega- 
tion of  the  two  racial  groups  is  hardly  more  complete 
in  Richmond  or  Atlanta.  In  the  great  dailies  of 
Washington,  for  example,  one  finds  little  or  no  refer- 
ence to  the  thought  and  life,  the  clubs,  churches,  or 
social  functions  of  the  100,000  coloured  citizens  of  the 
city.  So  far  as  any  apparent  sympathetic  interest 
of  the  white  is  concerned,  they  might  as  well  be  living 
in  Haiti  or  Timbuctu.  There  is  not  the  least  doubt 
that  were  the  conditions  such  as  those  prevailing  in 
other  cities,  particularly  in  politics,  there  would  be 
much  more  race  friction.  As  it  is,  there  is  an  external 
attitude  of  kindly  tolerance  and  indifference  on  the 
part  of  the  white,  with  a  deep  and  unmistakable  under- 
current of  racial  antipathy. 

When  men  realise  the  essential  similarity  of  the 
forces  at  work,  wherever  race  friction  between  the 
white  and  black  occurs,  whether  in  the  South  or  in 
South  Africa,  in  Boston  or  Atlanta,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  much  of  the  sectionalism  and  ignorance  which 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         177 

have  hitherto  characterised  the  study  of  the  race 
question  will  disappear.  Human  nature  is  essentially 
the  same  in  Philadelphia  or  in  Charleston,  in  New 
Orleans  or  in  Cape  Town.  Where  groups  of  whites 
and  blacks  are  brought  together  in  these  widely 
separated  parts  of  the  globe  they  will  in  all  probability 
behave  in  much  the  same  way  under  similar  circum- 
stances. The  frank  acknowledgment  of  this  fact  is 
the  only  basis  for  the  proper  comprehension  of  this 
infinitely  complex  question  of  race  relations. 

An  inevitable  result  of  this  racial  antipathy  found 
wherever  whites  of  English-speaking  stock  and 
blacks  are  thrown  together  is  the  emergence  within 
the  social  order  of  two  distinct  racial  groups  with 
very  little  in  common  apart  from  the  most  general 
participation  in  political  and  social  institutions.  This 
division  of  society  into  two  groups  is  inevitable  so 
long  as  there  exists  an  unwritten  law  refusing  social 
sanction  to  intermarriage  between  blacks  and  whites, 
and  there  is  no  possible  way  in  which  democratic  or 
any  other  social  or  political  institutions  can  prevent 
such  a  division.  The  group  division  will  of  course 
be  less  consciously  felt  by  society  at  large  where 
either  the  whites  or  blacks  are  very  much  in  the  ma- 
jority. This  explains  the  seemingly  paradoxical 
situation  that  race  friction  is  least  in  evidence  in  the 
far  North,  where  the  negro  is  a  very  small  percentage 


1 78  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

of  the  population,  and  also  in  the  heart  of  the  "black 
belt,"  where  the  whites  form  a  correspondingly  small 
percentage. 

This  dichotomy  of  community  life  presents  a  very 
interesting  situation  for  the  student  of  the  social 
mind.  We  have  seen  that  personality  matures  in 
the  midst  of  a  social  heritage  which  is  composed  of  the 
group  habits  and  group  ideals  which  have  been  slowly 
accumulated  through  generations  of  homogeneous 
group  life.  The  perfection  and  the  authoritativeness 
of  the  social  heritage  depends  upon  a  long  and  un- 
broken group  life.  The  self-poise  of  homogeneous 
and  highly  civilised  peoples  and  their  ability  to  pro- 
duce men  of  high  moral  and  cultural  attainment  is 
due  to  this  feeling  of  the  undisputed  supremacy  of 
group  ideals  among  all  classes  of  men.  When  an 
ideal  or  a  custom  fails  to  find  the  support  of  the  group 
as  a  whole,  it  speedily  loses  its  authoritativeness  and 
its  educative  power.  For  the  same  reason  ideals  or 
customs  which  are  of  fundamental  importance  for  the 
welfare  of  the  group  as  a  whole  receive  the  undisputed 
support  of  all  members,  and  those  inclined  to  ignore  or 
defy  them  are  speedily  eliminated. 

The  situation  of  the  southern  white  where  the  social 
order  is  equally  divided  between  two  separate  racial 
groups  with  habits  of  life  and  thought  differing  funda- 
mentally from  each  other  is  a  critical  one.  The  social 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR   LINE         179 

conscience  owes  its  authoritativeness  and  even  its 
very  existence  and  with  it  the  existence  of  the  social 
sanctions  that  guarantee  a  permanent  civilisation 
to  a  feeling  of  unity  and  social  solidarity  among  all 
the  members  of  the  social  order.  But  where  there 
are  two  separate  and  autonomous  groups  this  is  im- 
possible, and  the  logical  result  of  such  a  situation 
would  be  the  disintegration  of  the  social  order  entirely 
if  the  forces  here  at  work  were  allowed  free  play.  A 
permanent  social  order  is  possible  only  where  one  or 
other  of  the  two  sets  of  social  values  represented  by 
the  two  groups  secures  and  maintains  an  undisputed 
supremacy,  or  where  there  is  a  fusion  of  the  two  groups 
through  intermarriage.  Race  fusion,  if  this  is  pos- 
sible without  the  destruction  of  the  social  heritage, 
alone  makes  it  possible  for  all  the  members  of  the 
social  order  alike  to  attain  that  similarity  of  selfhood 
necessary  to  complete  social  solidarity  and  a  common 
loyalty  to  common  group  ideals.  Of  nothing  is  it  so 
true  as  of  the  sanctions  of  human  conduct  that  "a 
house  divided  against  itself  shall  not  stand." 
1  It  was  out  of  the  exigencies  of  such  a  social  sit- 
uation that  the  "colour  line"  arose.  Here,  if  anywhere, 
we  are  to  find  the  justification  of  it  and  all  the  phenom- 
ena of  race  discrimination  which  it  entails.  When 
we  eliminate  the  exhibitions  of  brutal  race  hatred 
which  are  usually  taken  by  superficial  and  prejudiced 


l8o  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

critics  as  typical  of  the  entire  situation  the  alterna- 
tives before  the  guardians  of  white  civilisation  are 
either  the  admission  of  the  negro  through  inter- 
marriage to  complete  social  solidarity,  which  would 
eliminate  entirely  the  dualism  of  the  social  mind  in 
the  most  natural  and  complete  fashion,  or  the  setting 
aside  of  the  negro  in  a  group  to  himself  and  the  in- 
sistence upon  his  recognition  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
white  group.  The  later  alternative  makes  a  modus 
vivendi  possible.  It  seems  hard  that  the  negro  should 
be  required  to  attain  selfhood  as  best  he  can  outside 
the  higher  cultural  possibilities  of  the  white  group 
and  subordinated  to  that  group,  and  yet  what  other 
alternative  would  the  social  philosopher  offer  us? 
He  certainly  would  not  ask  of  the  white  group  the 
supreme  sacrifice  of  its  ethnic  purity  which  is  the 
bearer  of  its  social  heritage  and,  therefore,  the  ulti- 
mate guarantee  of  the  continuity  and  integrity  of  its 
peculiar  type  of  civilisation. 

The  philosophy  of  the  colour  line  should  enable  us 
to  understand  why  the  full  and  complete  social  inte- 
gration of  the  negro  is  impossible.  Such  social  inte- 
gration as  does  exist  must  be  based  upon  mutual 
concessions  and  compromises.  The  conditions  of  the 
greatest  harmony  will  be,  as  already  suggested,  where 
the  weaker  group  accepts  unconditionally  the  will 
of  the  stronger  group.  Conditions  of  friction  will 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   THE   COLOUR    LINE         l8l 

inevitably  occur  where  the  weaker  group  refuses  to 
accept  these  conditions.  "The  most  fruitful  condi- 
tions of  race  friction  may  be  expected  where  there  is 
a  constant  insistence  upon  a  theoretical  equality  of 
the  weaker  group  which  the  stronger  denies." l 
Starting  with  racial  antipathy  as  a  fixed  and  irredu- 
cible element  in  the  problem,  it  is  undoubtedly  true 
that  the  farther  we  get  from  slavery  and  the  nearer 
an  approximation  of  the  theoretical  claims  of  democ- 
racy, the  more  difficult  social  integration  appears. 
It  has  indeed  been  asserted  that  slavery  is  the  only 
condition  under  which  a  weaker  race  of  widely  differ- 
ent traits  can  enjoy  intimate  social  relations  with  a 
stronger  without  friction.2  It  is  doubtless  true  that 
in  spite  of  fifty  years  of  freedom,  the  negro,  especially 
in  the  South,  enjoys  as  a  race  fewer  points  of  contact 
with  the  white  and  is  less  an  integral  part  of  the  social 
order  than  he  was  in  the  days  of  slavery. 

1  Stone,  Studies  in  the  American  Race  Question,  p.  223. 

1  Shaler,  "Race  Prejudice,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  1886,  p.  516. 


^  CHAPTER  VII 

CREATING  A  CONSCIENCE 

THE  facts  cited  in  the  chapter  on  the  "  colour  line  " 
indicate  that  the  social  salvation  of  the  negro  for  an 
indefinite  period  in  the  future  must  be  worked  out 
within  his  own  group.  It  will  be  conditioned,  there- 
fore, by  the  traditions  and  ideals  dominating  that 
group.  Since  personality  is  the  product  of  subtle 
forces  at  work  from  earliest  childhood  within  the 
family,  the  school,  the  church,  the  club,  or  the  com- 
munity, the  character  of  the  average  individual  does 
not  transcend  the  level  of  social  values  set  by  his 
group.  The  immediate  task  of  the  negro  leader  or 
reformer  lies,  therefore,  in  the  preservation  of  fit 
group  traditions  and  the  creation  of  social  habits 
within  the  home  and  elsewhere  which  shall  insure  the 
training  of  characters  socially  valuable.  Only  thus 
can  the  negro  as  a  class  hope  to  survive  in  the  tense 
competitive  life  of  our  modern  democracy. 

The  process  of  creating  socially  valuable  traditions 
and  habits  is  an  affair  of  the  group  rather  than  of  the 
individual.  It  has  been  observed  "no  individual  can 
make  a  conscience  for  himself.  He  always  needs  a 

182 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  183 

society  to  make  it  for  him."  1  That  is  to  say,  the 
ideas  that  form  the  sanctions  of  conduct  in  the  life 
of  the  individual  are  not  his  own  creation.  They 
are  the  gift  of  society  to  him  or  rather  they  are  the 
outcome  in  his  own  life  of  making  himself  social  and 
solid  with  his  fellows.  Hence  the  moral  ideals  of  the 
individual  will  be  more  or  less  of  a  reflection  of  those 
that  dominate  his  group.  The  "average  man"  is 
after  all  the  final  arbiter  of  social  and  moral  values. 
A  group  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  traditions  and 
ideals  until  they  are  shared  by  the  masses  and  not 
simply  proclaimed  by  a  few  brilliant  leaders.  It  is 
their  general  acceptance  that  secures  their  sanction. 
The  social  conscience  is  the  conscience  of  the  "average 
man."  The  salvation  of  a  social  group  is  ultimately 
a  question  of  the  salvation  of  the  "average  man." 

"  Deep  in  the  breast  of  the  Average  Man 
The  passions  of  ages  are  swirled, 
And  the  loves  and  the  hates  of  the  Average  Man 
Are  old  as  the  heart  of  the  world  — 
For  the  thought  of  the  race,  as  we  live  and  we  die 
Is  in  keeping  the  Man  and  the  Average  high." 

During  slavery  the  social  conscience  of  the  white 
group  included  both  races.  Though  the  slave  lived 
a  subordinate  and  passive  existence,  he  still  shared 
in  the  white's  civilisation.  His  ideals  of  home,  morals, 

1  T.  H.  Green,  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  p.  351. 


184  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

religion,  and  even  the  conventionalities  of  dress  and 
social  intercourse  reflected,  though  imperfectly,  to  be 
sure,  the  social  traditions  and  ideals  of  the  dominant 
group.  With  emancipation  and  the  racial  estrange- 
ment of  Reconstruction  came  a  divorcement  of  the 
group  consciousnesses  of  the  two  races.  Professor 
Fleming  has  probably  not  exaggerated  the  disastrous 
results  for  the  negro  when  he  states  that  "the  negroes 
deteriorated  much  in  personal  appearance  and  dress ; 
immorality  increased;  religion  nearly  died  out; 
consumption  and  other  diseases  attacked  the  childish 
people  who  would  not  care  for  themselves;  fceticide 
was  common;  negro  children  died  in  swarms  when 
very  young;  there  was  a  tendency  to  return  to  the 
barbarous  customs  of  their  African  forefathers; 
witchcraft  and  hoodoo  were  practised,  and  in  some 
cases  human  sacrifices  made."  1 

Race  friction  and  alienation  have  prevented  the 
two  groups  from  ever  getting  together  again.  As  a 
result  there  has  emerged  the  curious  dualism  in  the 
social  conscience  or  a  double  standard  of  conduct, 
one  for  the  white  and  another  for  the  black,  to  which 
we  have  alluded  in  the  opening  chapter.  The  black 
may  not  draw  upon  the  reservoir  of  social  and  moral 
traditions  of  the  white,  and  the  white  concerns  him- 

1  "  Reorganization  of  the  Industrial  System  in  Alabama  after  the 
Civil  War,"  The  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  X,  p.  498. 


CREATING  A   CONSCIENCE  185 

self  very  little  as  to  what  sort  of  social  conscience  is 
maturing  among  the  blacks.  Each  individual  is 
judged  by  the  standards  of  his  own  group,  although 
this  involves  the  strange  paradox  that  the  black 
applies  a  higher  standard  in  judging  the  white  than 
in  judging  his  fellows,  and  the  white  a  lower  standard 
in  judging  the  black  than  in  his  pronouncements  upon 
the  members  of  his  own  group.  A  negro  writer  has 
observed  this  same  dual  standard  in  matters  of 
etiquette.1  Perhaps  the  most  discouraging  phase 
of  the  race  question  from  the  standpoint  of  the  negro 
reformer  is  the  difficult  task  of  building  up  among  an 
ignorant  and  primitive  people,  living  in  the  midst  of 
an  old  and  mature  civilisation,  group  ideals  that  shall 
give  real  expression  to  the  social  consciousness  of  the 
negro  himself  and  at  the  same  time  measure  up  to 
the  demands  of  the  community  at  large. 

The  note  of  uncertainty  as  well  as  the  ferment  and 
discontent  which  may  be  -detected  among  the  negroes 
themselves  is  due  in  no  small  degree  to  this  poverty 
of  group  traditions.2  The  race  is  not  sure  of  itself. 
It  lacks  the  elevating  influence  of  lofty  group  ideals 
as  well  as  the  steadying  effect  of  socially  valuable 
group  habits;  it  has  been  truly  said  that  "the  only 

1  E.  M.  Woods,  The  Negro  in  Etiquette:  a  Novelty,  p.  22. 

2  Baker,  Following  the  Color  -Line,  Ch.  X,  "An  Ostracised  Race 
in  Ferment." 


1 86  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

ultimate  strength  of  any  social  group  is  the  strength 
of  a  life  self-chosen."  a  Even  on  occasions  when  condi- 
tions are  most  favourable  for  the  subordination  of 
personal  ambitions  and  individual  differences  and  the 
emphasis  of  common  ideals,  we  often  find  a  painful 
lack  of  unity.  The  recent  celebration  in  Boston  by 
the  Negro  Lincoln  Memorial  Society  of  the  Fiftieth 
Anniversary  of  Emancipation  was  a  most  ambitious 
undertaking.  Yet  The  Advocate  (Jan.  3,  1913),  a 
negro  paper  of  Cambridge,  pronounces  it  a  failure 
and  adds:  "It  is  disconcerting  in  the  extreme  in  this 
the  fiftieth  year  of  the  race's  freedom  to  witness  the 
lack  of  unity,  intense  envy  and  destructive  rivalry 
among  negroes,  and  —  surpassing  all  understanding 
—  the  arch  villain  in  this  instance  is  a  Harvard  gradu- 
ate." Part  of  the  programme  was  abandoned  and  suits 
at  law  "for  defamation  of  character  and  damages 
against  an  editor  of  a  local  weekly  and  two  ministers" 
are  possible  outcomes  of  the  imbroglio. 

The  negro,  in  so  far  as  he  lacks  group  ideals,  is  apt 
to  become  a  wandering  star  in  the  social  firmament, 
and  hence  a  danger  to  himself  and  a  menace  to  the 
community.  The  criminal  is  antisocial,  mainly 
because  he  lacks  proper  moral  orientation ;  he  is  not 
social  and  solid  with  his  fellows  in  the  sense  that  the 
welfare  of  the  community  demands.  The  large  per- 

1  Murphy,  The  Basis  of  Ascendency,  p.  no. 


CREATING  A   CONSCIENCE  187 

centage  of  criminals  which  the  negro,  North  as  well 
as  South,  has  furnished  is  to  be  traced  to  the  inchoate 
and  socially  inefficient  nature  of  the  traditions  and 
habits  of  the  group  from  which  they  emerge  rather 
than  to  any  inherent  criminal  impulses  of  the  race. 
An  imperfectly  socialised  group  must  be  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  situation  a  prolific  source  of  anti- 
social characters.  For  the  binding  force  of  the 
"ought"  will  not  be  felt  where  the  individual  through 
ignorance,  group  segregation,  or  poverty  of  group 
ideals  is  prevented  from  sharing  in  the  higher  social 
values.  The  criminal  white  of  the  lower  classes  may 
be  no  better  or  perhaps  worse  than  the  negro  criminal, 
and  yet  he  is  constantly  in  the  grip  of  the  social  con- 
science of  the  white  group  and  is  thus  made  to  feel 
at  every  turn  the  constraining  force  of  its  moral 
ideals. 

This  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  field  of  sex 
morality.  The  bulwark  of  the  sanctity  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  home  and  the  purity  of  white  womanhood  is 
to  be  found  in  the  social  traditions  and  customs  em- 
bodied in  institutional  forms,  glorified  by  the  pen  or 
the  brush  of  the  artist,  sanctified  by  religion,  and 
representing  the  moral  and  social  increments  of 
centuries  of  civilisation.  The  negro  home  has  no  such 
age-long  background  of  Christian  civilisation,  but 
instead  slavery  and  savagery.  Furthermore,  though 


1 88  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

living  in  the  midst  of  a  more  advanced  civilisation, 
racial  differences  and  antipathies  prevent  him  from 
appropriating  directly  the  social  and  moral  heritage 
of  the  white  by  intermarriage.  He  is  forced  to  create 
his  own  home  life  and  his  own  sex  traditions  within 
his  own  group,  and  too  often  it  amounts  almost  to 
asking  him  to  make  bricks  without  straw.  What 
Livingstone  says  of  the  conditions  among  the  negroes 
of  Jamaica,  where  the  illegitimate  births  are  50  per 
cent  of  the  total,  is  at  least  approximated  among  the 
negroes  of  the  "black  belt"  of  the  far  South :  "In  the 
mass  they  are  still  without  a  proper  standard  of 
morality;  of  the  ethical  laws  that  safeguard  the 
sanctity  of  the  sex  in  highly  civilised  communities 
they  know  practically  nothing;  and  in  their  eyes 
there  is  nothing  wrong  in  the  instinctive  gratification 
of  sense.  Chastity  is  considered  unnatural.  'Then 
why  fe  God  mek  me  so?'  said  a  woman  who  was 
remonstrated  with.  .  .  .  The  sensuality  of  the  race 
in  short  is  not  vice,  but  ignorance."  1 

The  replies  to  a  questionnaire  sent  by  the  writer 
to  physicians  of  both  races  in  various  parts  of  the 
"black  belt"  of  the  South  furnish  abundant  evidence 
of  the  truth  of  the  statements  above.  Among  the 
negroes  of  this  section  the  fearful  looseness  in  sexual 
relations  is  due  to  ignorance  and  the  almost  entire 

1  Black  Jamaica,  pp.  209,  210. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  189 

absence  of  a  vigorous  and  healthful  social  conscience 
upon  these  questions  rather  than  to  any  inherent 
racial  depravity.  A  physician  of  northern  birth  and 
training  who  has  resided  for  twelve  years  in  the 
"black  belt"  of  Louisiana  writes  that  if  the  masses  of 
the  plantation  negroes  of  that  section  were  "subjected 
to  the  Simon-Binet  tests,  none  of  them  would  go  over 
twenty  years  and  most  of  them  would  be  found  to  be 
about  ten  to  twelve  years  old."  They  have  "a  child's 
intellect  which  leads  to  bad  hygiene,  poor  food,  and 
bad  morals."  Ignorance  and  the  tyranny  of  powerful 
elemental  impulses  place  them  at  the  mercy  of  disease 
and  explain  the  amazing  moral  indifference  which 
allows  a  "negro  girl  to  have  two  or  three  illegitimate 
children  without  in  the  least  impairing  her  standing 
in  church  or  society  or  her  chances  of  marriage." 
In  view  of  these  facts  those  leaders  of  the  race  that  are 
striving  to  leaven  the  vast  mass  of  negro  peasantry 
of  the  plantations  of  the  South  with  social  ideals  and 
group  habits  which  shall  insure  purity  among  its 
womanhood  and  sanctity  in  its  homes  as  well  as  thrift 
and  efficiency  in  its  daily  tasks  are  entitled  to  all 
sympathy  and  encouragement. 

Doubtless  the  most  characteristic  product  of  the 
negro  group  is  the  negro  preacher;  certainly  he  re- 
flects in  many  ways  the  ideals  of  his  people.  He  is 
very  frequently  characterised  by  an  exaggerated 


DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

sense  of  personal  worth  and  dignity.  Says  a  recent 
investigator:  "In  the  pulpit  while  preaching  and 
administering  the  affairs  of  the  church  he  assumes 
and  feels  that  the  destiny  of  the  hour  lies  in  his  own 
importance  and  his  ability  to  make  his  followers 
feel  the  same  attitude.  ...  In  the  home  his 
lordly  airs  and  condescending  grace  and  manners 
approach  the  perfect  art.  He  is  irresistible,  his 
self -feeling  is  superb.  His  efforts  to  evoke  admira- 
tion are  not  in  vain  and  he  is  a  universal  favourite 
among  the  'sisters.'  His  whole  attitude  is  one  that 
would  have  his  word  the  final  law  and  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  his  parallel.  So  important  is  he  that 
he  is  beyond  sin,  and  his  self-feeling  gives  him  free 
and  unquestioned  license  to  do  whatever  he  wishes.  "  1 
The  exaggerated  sense  of  self  so  prominent  in  the 
negro  preacher  appears,  though  in  much  more  naive 
and  ingenuous  forms,  among  other  members  of  the 
group.  The  advertiser  in  the  newspaper,  whether 
he  be  a  tailor,  a  restaurateur,  an  undertaker,  a  hair- 
dresser, or  a  clairvoyant,  is  fond  of  introducing  his 
photograph,  the  picture  often  taking  more  space  than 
the  advertising  matter.  The  love  of  positions  of 
social  prominence,  membership  upon  committees  or 
high-sounding  and  mysterious  titles  betrays  the  same 
trait.  A  negro  hotel  keeper  in  Indiana  signs  his  adver- 
1  Odum,  op.  cit,,  p.  254. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  IQI 

tisement,  "Yours  inF.C.B.,  I.B.P.O.E.  of  W.F.P.A." 

A  full-page  advertisement  that  ran  for  several  weeks 
in  a  prominent  negro  paper  of  the  Middle  West  con- 
tained the  full-length  picture  of  the  founder  of  "The 
True  Light  of  Life,  Royal  Life,  Holy  United,  Royal 
Trust  Company,"  who  signed  himself  "the  Arch- 
bishop of  the  Supreme  Church  of  Glory."  The 
problem  of  instilling  a  manly  and  dignified  feeling 
of  self-respect  which  avoids  the  bumptious  preten- 
tiousness of  the  upstart  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
servility  of  the  coward  or  the  sneak  on  the  other 
can  only  be  solved  for  the  masses  of  any  group  by 
the  cultivation  of  an  enlightened  and  refined  social 
conscience. 

Lack  of  moral  vigour  in  the  group  conscience  is 
especially  evident  in  the  too  frequent  toleration  in 
ministers  of  the  gravest  moral  delinquencies.  A  negro 
physician,  writing  from  southern  Louisiana,  complains 
bitterly  of  the  curse  of  migratory  and  glib-tongue 
preachers  who  are  without  character.  He  is  corrob- 
orated by  the  testimony  of  numerous  physicians  in 
various  parts  of  the  South  who  state  that  they  fre- 
quently treat  negro  preachers  for  diseases  that  should 
forever  place  them  without  the  pale  of  the  Christian 
ministry.  Intelligent  negro  laymen  also  are  most 
outspoken  as  to  the  failings  of  their  ministry.  Out 
of  90  replies  to  the  question,  "What  is  the  greatest 


DEMOCRACY   AND   RACE   FRICTION 

need  of  our  churches?",  58  emphasised  a  higher 
standard  in  religious  leaders.  The  question,  "Of  the 
ministers  whom  you  know,  how  many  are  notoriously 
immoral?",  was  submitted  to  some  200  intelligent 
negro  laymen  in  the  South  and  North  and  the  follow- 
ing are  some  of  the  replies  received.  From  Colorado : 
"I  know  some  500  ministers.  Of  that  number  prob- 
ably 100  are  immoral."  From  Mississippi:  "About 
10  per  cent  are  notoriously  immoral."  From  South 
Carolina:  "About  10  per  cent  are  notoriously  im- 
moral." From  Augusta,  Georgia:  "I  regret  that  I 
know  some  ministers  who  are  immoral  and  they  are 
publicly  known  to  be  immoral,  but  they  manage  to 
hold  congregations  and  preach  (!)  to  them."  Jack- 
sonville, Florida :  "I  know  of  five  around  this  city  who 
are  grossly  immoral."  From  Dallas,  Texas:  "Fifteen 
notoriously  immoral,  nine  sexually  impure,  four  are 
drunkards,  and  two  are  dishonest  in  money  matters." 
From  Petersburg,  Virginia:  "I  know  a  large  number 
of  ministers  in  this  and  other  states.  One  out  of 
every  four  I  would  regard  as  being  morally  bad. 
In  the  order  named  I  would  say  that  sexual  impurity 
holds  the  first  place,  drunkenness  the  next,  and  money 
matters  third."  1  The  majority  of  the  members  of 
this  profession  are  undoubtedly  worthy  men  and 

1 "  The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  8,  pp. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  IQ3 

powerful  agents  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  uplift 
of  their  people,  and  yet  it  is  evident  from  the  above 
statements  that  there  is  a  very  general  laxity  of  morals 
among  them  and  altogether  too  much  indifference 
toward  it  among  the  masses  of  the  church  member- 
ship. 

It  would,  however,  be  doing  an  injustice  to  the 
average  negro  to  suppose  that  he  consciously  prosti- 
tutes his  moral  sense  or  cheapens  his  feeling  of  personal 
worth  by  tolerating  such  traits  in  his  ministers.  The 
explanation  of  such  an  unfortunate  situation  is  to  be 
found  in  the  ideals  and  traditions  of  the  group  as  a 
whole.  The  negro  preacher,  with  his  good  as  well  as 
his  bad  qualities,  is  influenced  by  the  ideals  of  the 
group  in  which  he  lives.  It  is  futile  to  expect  either 
priest  or  people  to  rise  higher  than  the  social  and 
moral  values  accepted  by  the  race.  When  the  con- 
science of  the  "average  man"  of  the  negro  group  is 
offended  by  moral  lapses  or  disgusted  by  exhibitions 
of  inordinate  egotism  in  his  religious  guides,  the  latter 
will  very  soon  come  to  feel  the  pressure  of  a  higher 
social  conscience  and  will  conform  to  its  standard 
of  values.  As  it  is,  the  social  prestige,  in  which  we 
may  have  a  faint  echo  of  the  tyranny  of  the  African 
priest,  the  exaggerated  sense  of  self  due  to  the  blind 
homage  of  the  masses,  and  a  sluggish  moral  sense 
caused  by  the  lack  of  a  healthful  social  conscience 


IQ4  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

make  possible  religious  monstrosities  in  the  garb  of 
the  Christian  ministry. 

Immaturity  and  uncertainty  of  group  ideals  are  in 
evidence  even  among  the  "intellectuals."  The  pessi- 
mistic tone  detected  among  negro  leaders  now  and 
then  —  the  pessimism  of  DuBois'  The  Souls  of  Black 
Folk  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  example  —  is  due 
largely  to  the  feeling  of  a  want  of  social  orientation 
and  a  sympathetic  social  background  for  the  thought 
and  aspiration  of  the  individual.  An  exaggerated 
egoism  is  also  to  be  detected,  due  to  the  fact  that  self 
has  been  put  in  place  of  the  group.  Pessimism  always 
presupposes  a  lack  of  social  solidarity,  an  overem- 
phasis of  the  self,  and  a  consequent  feeling  of  malad- 
justment, which  discourages  all  efforts  at  self-unfold- 
ing and  active  participation  in  the  creation  of  social 
values.  The  optimist,  on  the  other  hand,  feels  that 
he  is  at  one  with  his  race  or  his  age.  He  is  confident 
that  the  ethical  and  religious  values  for  which  he  strives 
are  vested  in  a  larger  and  more  comprehensive  order 
of  which  he  is  a  member  and  which  guarantees  the 
persistence  and  final  consummation  of  these  values. 
Pessimism  is  peculiarly  characteristic  of  an  ostracised 
group  or  of  one  making  the  transition  from  a  lower 
to  a  higher  stage  of  culture.  It  has  been  called  the 
philosophy  of  half-culture  1  and  is  apt  to  arise  where 
1  Vierkandt,  Naturvolker  und  Kulturvolker,  pp.  213  ff. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  IQ5 

the  group  is  not  certain  of  its  ideals  or  where  they 
are  in  process  of  formation.  The  fact  often  remarked 
upon  that  the  negro  of  to-day  has  lost  much  of  the 
care-free  joyousness  of  slavery  days,  a  trait  charac- 
teristic of  the  savage,  would  seem  to  indicate  that 
the  problems  of  existence  are  pressing  upon  him. 
This  is  a  necessary  preparation  for  the  creation  of 
serious  group  ideals. 

It  is  natural  that  the  negro,  in  the  absence  of  mature 
and  self-sufficient  group  ideals  of  his  own,  should  look 
to  the  white  for  his  models  and  in  spite  of  race  segrega- 
tion should  even  lean  strongly  upon  the  sanctions  of 
the  dominant  group.  The  negro,  especially  of  the 
South,  has  known  no  other  social  atmosphere  than 
one  in  which  his  own  group  ideals  are  constantly 
subordinated  to  those  of  the  stronger  race  and  exist, 
therefore,  only  as  subject  to  the  social  sanctions  of 
the  white.  For  this  reason  he  instinctively  turns  in 
moments  of  danger  or  when  social  crises  arise  to  the 
prominent  citizens  of  the  white  race  rather  than  to 
his  own  people  for  guidance.  During  the  terror  of 
the  Atlanta  riot,  September,  1906,  many  negro  fami- 
lies fled  to  the  prominent  whites  of  the  city  for 
protection.1 

Furthermore,  the  testimony  of  respondents  as  to 
the  social  and  economic  conditions  of  the  negro,  espe- 

1  Baker,  op.  cit.,  p.  n. 


196  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

daily  in  the  South,  is  practically  unanimous  in  the 
contention  that  the  intelligence,  thriftiness,  and 
purity  of  morals  of  the  black  depend  to  a  very  large 
extent  upon  the  degree  of  intercourse  with  the  whites. 
Mr.  J.  W.  McLeod,  whose  efforts  for  the  uplift  of  his 
negro  tenants  on  his  plantations  in  the  "black  belt," 
Macon  County,  Alabama,  have  attracted  the  attention 
and  the  commendation  of  all  friends  of  the  negro,1 
writes  me  as  follows:  "I  am  impressed  that  the 
negro  is  deficient  in  the  power  of  initiation.  .  .  .  He 
is  imitative  and  his  progress  is  very  largely,  perhaps 
almost  entirely,  the  result  of  this  faculty.  It  is  my 
opinion  that  if  left  to  himself,  he  could  not  progress, 
and  that  if  the  uplifting  and  sustaining  power  of 
white  civilisation  was  withdrawn  from  his  life,  he  would 
sink  to  the  level  of  his  African  ancestors.  The  hope 
is  that  there  is  a  dormant  self-lifting  power  in  him 
which  the  quickening  touch  of  the  white  race  will 
stimulate  until  he  shall  be  able  to  stand  alone  and 
finally  develop  a  strong,  ambitious,  creative,  and 
resourceful  race." 

Professor  Gray  states  as  a  result  of  a  study  of  condi- 
tions in  the  "black  belt"  that  contact  with  the  white 
is  especially  beneficial  for  the  negro  family  as  well 
as  in  other  ways,  and  similar  conclusions  are  reached 

1  See  Dr.  Booker  Washington  in  the  Annals  of  the  American  Acad- 
emy of  Political  and  Social  Science,  XL,  March,  1912,  pp.  87-89. 


CREATING  A  CONSCIENCE  197 

by  other  writers.1  In  view  of  what  has  been  said  as 
to  the  negro's  imitative  nature  this  is  what  we  would 
expect.  Wherever  he  has  been  transplanted  the 
negro  has  readily  assumed  the  colour  of  his  racial 
environment.  In  Spanish  America  he  is  Spanish, 
in  Haiti  he  is  French,  in  Jamaica  he  is  English,  and  in 
the  southern  states  he  is  American.  The  very  fact 
of  the  poverty  of  his  own  racial  equipment,  so  far  as 
culture  or  group  traditions  are  concerned,  makes  him 
yield  readily  to  his  social  environment  whatever  that 
may  chance  to  be. 

The  pliancy  of  the  negro,  which  has  undoubtedly 
been  his  salvation  in  his  contact  with  the  rigid  social 
and  political  institutions  and  complexcivilisationof  the 
white,  is  not,  however,  an  unmitigated  blessing.  His 
rapid  and  wholesale  or  superficial  assimilation  of  the 
moral  ideals  of  the  white  would  hardly  prove  a  blessing. 
It  becomes  indeed  a  matter  of  some  importance  to 
determine  to  what  extent  a  backward  people  may  take 
over  bodily  the  traditions  of  a  more  mature  group 
without  danger  to  itself.  The  appropriation  by  the 
negro  of  the  culture  of  the  Arabs  or  even  of  the  Latin 
peoples  seems  on  the  whole  to  have  been  more  suc- 

1  "Plantation  System  and  the  Negro  Problem,"  Annals  of  the  Amer- 
ican Academy,  XL,  March,  1912,  p.  91.  See  also  R.  P.  Brooks,  "A 
Local  Study  of  the  Race  Problem,"  Political  Science  Quarterly,  June, 
1911. 


198  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

cessful  than  his  assimilation  of  that  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  because  perhaps  the  gap  is  not  so  great.1  The 
maturity  and  fixity  of  bur  institutional  forms,  the 
essentially  militant  spirit  of  American  democracy,  and 
especially  race  segregation,  and  the  refusal  of  inter- 
marriage combine  to  make  the  assimilation  of  the 
ethics  of  the  white  a  slow  and  difficult  process  for 
the  negro.  Race  segregation  as  well  as  a  true  regard 
for  the  future  of  the  negro  group  render  it  imper- 
ative furthermore  that  whatever  appropriation  does 
take  place  must  not  imperil  the  racial  integrity 
and  self-respect  of  the  negro  himself  and  must  bear 
some  relation  to  a  position  in  the  social  and  economic 
orders  which  is  more  or  less  predetermined  by  his 
race  traits  and  temperament. 

Imitation,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  process  by  which 
one  group  takes  over  the  social  heritage  of  another. 
Hence  it  is  through  imitation,  if  at  all,  that  the  negro 
must  appropriate  the  moral  ideals  of  the  white.  But, 
as  already  suggested  in  previous  chapters,  this  process 
of  imitation  varies  in  intensity  and  effectiveness  accord- 
ing to  social  conditions.  It  is  most  effective  where  per- 
sonal contact  is  most  intimate  and  constant,  namely, 
in  the  family  circle.  It  is  here  rather  than  in 
more  casual  social  contacts  of  society  at  large 

1  Thomas,  "The  Province  of  Social  Psychology,"  The  Am, 
Journal  of  Sociology,  X,  p.  449. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  IQ9 

the  individual,  through  daily  and  hourly  intercourse 
during  the  plastic  period  of  childhood,  assimilates 
the  feelings,  the  habits  of  thought  and  conduct  of 
his  fellows  and  of  the  group  life  which  finds  its  epitome 
in  the  family.  Here  primarily  the  character  and  the 
conscience  of  the  individual  and  of  the  group  to  which 
he  belongs  are  shaped. 

There  is  also  in  addition  to  this  intimate  personal 
imitation,  so  fundamental  in  character  building,  an 
imitative  process  constantly  taking  place  between 
individuals  in  the  more  casual  relations  of  society 
in  general.1  The  differences  between  these  two  forms 
of  imitation  are  important.  In  personal  imitation 
the  copy  presented  is  concrete,  intimate,  and  con- 
stantly repeated.  It  is  only  under  such  conditions 
that  one  individual  can  gain  a  sympathetic  and 
thorough  acquaintance  with  the  thought  of  another 
or  of  the  group  to  which  he  belongs.  In  social 
imitation,  however,  the  copy  is  incidental,  external, 
and  massive,  giving  insight  only  into  the  superficial 
and  broadly  human  traits  that  mark  the  crowd 
psychosis. 

In  the  negro's  attempt  to  create  a  social  conscience 
by  imitative  assimilation  of  the  social  heritage  of  the 

1  See  Professor  Dowd's  suggestive  remarks,  "The  Racial  Element 
in  Social  Assimilation,"  The  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  XVI, 
pp.  633  ff. 


200  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

white  it  is  evident  that  so  long  as  he  is  unable  to  gain 
access  through  intermarriage  to  that  inner  circle  of 
group  life,  namely,  the  home,  where  the  expanding 
individual  absorbs  the  cultural  symbols  and  the  finer 
religious  and  moral  sentiments  of  the  group,  it  is 
impossible  for  him  to  appropriate  in  any  direct  and 
intimate  fashion  the  ethical  traditions  of  the  white. 
His  imitation  must  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case 
remain  social  imitation.  The  household  slave  of  the 
old  regime  was,  in  this  respect,  more  advantageously 
situated  than  the  free  negro  of  to-day.  Through 
daily,  intimate,  personal  contact  with  master  and 
mistress  he  was  able  to  enter  the  inner  circle  of  the 
white  group  consciousness  and  make  its  ideals  real 
in  his  own  thought  and  conduct. 

But  the  free  negro,  being  a  member  of  an  ostra- 
cised group,  tends  to  take  over  from  the  white  only 
the  external  symbols  of  his  culture  without  in  many 
instances  appreciating  its  inner  spirit.  In  matters 
of  fashion,  food,  religion,  social  institutions,  and  the 
thousand  and  one  conventionalities  of  external  inter- 
course the  negro  faithfully  reproduces  the  copy  offered 
by  the  white  and  very  often  in  exaggerated  form. 
Yet,  as  Professor  Dowd  remarks,  "To  dress  and  eat 
in  the  fashion,  to  catch  on  to  native  industrial  methods 
and  technique,  to  patronise  American  public  amuse- 
ments, and  to  acquire  something  of  the  current  knowl- 


CREATING  A   CONSCIENCE  2OI 

edge  of  the  time  does  not  carry  a  race  very  far  in  the 
direction  of  assimilation."  l  It  may  lead  to  the  pro- 
duction of  a  useless  and  socially  obnoxious  type. 
The  intense  animosity  aroused  even  among  whites 
of  the  better  class  by  the  bumptiousness  of  the 
"smart  negro"2  is  due  to  a  vague  feeling  of  the 
spuriousness  of  the  culture  he  represents,  a  culture 
that  airily  claims  all  the  rights  and  apes  in  dress  and 
bearing  all  the  external  appearances  of  the  genuine 
article  while  utterly  devoid  of  its  real  spirit  and 
essence.  Exaggerated  self-feeling,  to  which  we  have 
alluded,  destroys  all  sense  of  social  values  so  that  such 
a  person  has  no  true  appreciation  of  individual  worth. 
The  roots  of  his  character  take  hold  only  in  the  most 
superficial  manner  upon  those  permanent  and  uni- 
versal social  values  whence  the  manly  soul  draws 
its  conceptions  of  right  and  its  sense  of  personal 
dignity. 

The  task  of  creating  a  social  conscience  is  an  im- 
mediate and  imperative  one  for  the  negro;  for  the 
laying  of  a  sound  ethical  basis  for  negro  life  and 
thought  is  necessary  to  the  very  survival  of  the  group 
itself.  Moreover,  this  social  conscience  must  to  a  very 
large  extent  be  the  creation  of  the  group  itself.  This 
does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  the  negro  group  is  to 
work  out  its  salvation  entirely  apart  from  the  white. 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  634.  *  Baker,  op.  «/.,  p.  125. 


202  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

The  negro  will  doubtless  acquire  in  ever  increasing 
measure  the  fairest  treasures  of  the  white's  social 
heritage,  in  literature,  art,  religion,  and  science.  These 
treasures,  however,  will  only  have  meaning  and  vi- 
tality for  him  as  they  become  a  means  for  the  expres- 
sion of  his  own  best  and  most  intimate  self,  and  this 
implies  their  fundamental  transformation  in  the  very 
process  of  appropriation.  It  has  been  pointed  out 
that  the  negro  as  a  race  is  still  a  socially  unknown 
quantity,  a  mystery  as  unfathomable  as  the  dark 
continent  whence  he  came.1  He  is  a  mystery  pri- 
marily because  he  has  as  yet  evolved  no  indigenous 
culture  through  which  he  can  reveal  his  deepest  self 
to  the  world.  The  negro  himself  must  find  a  voice. 
The  work  of  self-discovery  must  be  his  own.  The 
task  of  social  orientation  is  his,  not  another's.  We 
have  no  place  for  the  racial  nondescript  or  the  moral 
parasite. 

The  chief  agency  upon  which  the  negro  must  de- 
pend for  the  creation  of  a  social  conscience  is,  of 
course,  the  home.  Second  only  to  the  home  are  the 
school  and  the  church.  They  are  destined  to  play 
even  a  larger  part  in  the  moral  elevation  of  the  race 
than  they  have  played  hi  the  past ;  the  church  be- 
cause through  it  the  group  mind  finds  its  fullest  ex- 
pression; the  school  because  of  its  potentialities  for 

1  Murphy,  The  Basis  of  Ascendency,  p.  80. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  203 

laying  a  material  and  intellectual  basis  for  the  group 
conscience. 

The  negro  press  has  not  on  the  whole  measured  up 
to  its  opportunities  and  responsibilities  as  a  race 
educator.  There  are  over  300  negro  publications  in 
the  United  States  with  an  average  circulation  of  per- 
haps 2000.  The  Freeman  of  Indianapolis  leads 
with  a  circulation  of  25,000,  though  it  claims  that  it  is 
"read  by  more  than  100,000  negroes  weekly";  the 
Atlanta  Independent  comes  next  with  19,000;  the 
National  Baptist  Union  of  Nashville  has  12,000;  and 
the  Southwestern  Christian  Advocate  of  New  Orleans 
9000.  Among  the  states  Mississippi  leads  with  35 
negro  publications  ;  Alabama  claims  24 ;  Georgia  22  ; 
Texas  and  South  Carolina  20 ;  Florida,  Arkansas,  and 
Oklahoma  14;  while  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  Rhode 
Island,  and  Montana  have  only  one,  and  still  other 
states,  such  as  Maine,  none.  Many  of  these  publica- 
tions must  be  of  a  superficial  and  ephemeral  character. 
The  average  circulation  of  the  16  leading  papers  of 
Mississippi  is  about  800 ;  the  town  of  Edwards,  with 
a  total  population  of  589,  enjoys  three  negro  publi- 
cations, while  Greenville,  with  a  total  population  of 
7642,  of  which  4987  are  coloured,  has  six  negro  publi- 
cations and  three  white.  The  number  and  circulation 
of  papers  of  a  religious  and  fraternal  character  — 
there  are  five  or  more  Odd  Fellow  journals  alone  — 


204  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

is  significant  for  the  part  played  by  these  institutions 
in  the  life  of  the  negro.1 

The  tone  of  the  average  negro  newspaper,  even  in 
the  case  of  those  that  enjoy  the  widest  circulation,  is 
local,  personal,  gossipy,  even  provincial.  The  first 
page  is  often  taken  up  with  lengthy  communications 
from  correspondents  in  distant  towns  and  cities  in 
which  are  narrated  all  the  details  of  Miss  Perley 
Jenkins'  last  card  party  or  the  happenings  at  the 
local  convention  of  the  Ancient  Knights  and 
Daughters  of  Africa.  The  impression  gained  is  that 
the  negro  newspaper  is  merely  an  adjunct,  the  object 
of  which  is  to  supply  what  the  negro  wants  to  know 
and  cannot  get  from  the  white  press.  The  attempts 
to  start  negro  dailies  have  thus  far  been  signal  failures, 
owing  doubtless  to  the  inability  of  the  negro  paper  to 
compete  with  the  great  purveyors  of  the  news,  espe- 
cially the  dailies  of  the  larger  cities.  Consequently 
all  the  leading  negro  papers  are  weeklies  and  lay  em- 
phasis only  upon  those  current  events  that  are  of 
immediate  concern  to  the  negro,  taking  it  for  granted 
presumably  that  their  readers  will  go  to  the  great 
dailies  for  the  general  news. 

Owing  to  this  peculiar  position  occupied  by  the 
negro  paper  and  the  intimate  and  direct  appeal  it 

1  These  data  are  taken  from  N.  W.  Ayers  and  Sons'  American 
Newspaper  Annual  and  Directory  for  1912. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  2O5 

makes  to  the  negro  along  racial  lines,  it  enjoys  an 
unrivalled  opportunity  for  the  education  of  the  group 
conscience.  There  are  evidences  also  that  it  is  awak- 
ening to  its  opportunities.  The  vigour  with  which 
such  journals  as  the  New  York  Age,  the  Cambridge 
Advocate  of  Boston,  the  Freeman  of  Indianapolis, 
and  the  Birmingham  American  are  preaching  Dr. 
Washington's  doctrines  of  thrift  and  industrial  effi- 
ciency must  in  time  have  its  effect  upon  their  readers. 
The  manly  courage  with  which  the  editor  of  the 
Birmingham  American  attacks  from  time  to  time  the 
besetting  sins  of  the  negro  of  the  South,  not  excepting 
even  the  negro  preacher,  is  most  hopeful  for  the  future 
of  the  group  conscience  of  that  section.  Finally,  it 
should  be  said  that  the  negro  newspapers  of  the  type 
of  the  Southwestern  Christian  Advocate  of  New  Orleans 
take  attitudes  upon  race  morals,  home  life,  and  reli- 
gion that  are  not  one  whit  inferior  to  those  of  the 
leading  religious  press  of  the  white,  whatever  may  be 
said  as  to  the  extent  to  which  these  lofty  teachings 
are  actually  taken  to  heart  by  their  readers.1 

An  exact  estimate  of  the  part  played  by  the  home 
in  the  moral  evolution  of  the  negro  is  difficult,  owing 
to  the  diversity  of  the  facts  and  the  consequent  dis- 
crepancies of  opinion.  A  respondent  from  central 
Virginia  with  twenty  years  of  experience  as  a  practis- 

1  See  Odum,  op.  cil.,  p.  163. 


206  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

ing  physician  among  the  negroes  writes:  "The  home 
life  of  the  respectable  negroes  (fully  seventy-five 
per  cent)  makes  for  good  morals,"  in  family  affection 
they  are  "fully  up  to  the  average  of  the  white  family", 
if  not  indeed  superior,"  while  in  the  matter  of  sex 
morals  "they  have  nearly  attained  the  level  of  the 
whites."  On  the  other  hand  a  physician  from  the 
Yazoo-Delta  section  of  Mississippi  writes  :  "Certainly 
not  more  than  five  per  cent  of  the  negroes  in  this  part 
of  the  country  live  pure  lives;  this  applies  to  both 
sexes  alike.  .  .  .  There  is  very  little  improvement 
in  the  purity  of  womanhood  and  but  very  little 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie."  "Home,  as  under- 
stood by  the  negro  of  the  black  belt,"  writes  a 
prominent  physician  of  southern  Alabama,  "means 
nothing  more  than  a  place  to  stay.  ...  As  medical 

examiner  of  the  public  school  children  of ,  I  find 

that  over  40  per  cent  of  the  negro  children  do  not  live 
with  their  fathers.  The  negro  child  will  invariably 
reply  to  the  question  'With  whom  do  you  live?'  by 
giving  the  mother's  name.  The  causes  of  this  condi- 
tion are  illegitimacy,  desertion,  death,  working  else- 
where, allowing  them  to  support  themselves,  in  the 
order  named,  the  largest  first." 

The  facts  indicate  the  existence  of  different  cultural 
levels  in  the  home  life  of  the  negro.  The  highest 
level  is  represented  by  the  few  homes  of  educated 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  207 

and  prosperous  negroes  to  be  found  in  every  large 
city.  Another  level  is  found  in  the  negro  homes  of 
towns  and  villages,  unpretentious,  often  poor,  but 
honest  and  clean.  The  lowest  level  is  found  in  the 
one-room  cabin  of  the  "black  belt,"  which  is  often 
only  "a  place  to  stay." 

Probably  no  greater  contrast  is  to  be  found  in  any 
civilised  land  than  that  existing  between  the  negro 
peasant  family  living  in  a  one-room  cabin  on  the 
plantations  of  Mississippi  or  Louisiana  and  the 
cultured  homes  of  negroes  of  the  better  class  in  cities 
such  as  Atlanta  or  Washington,1  and  yet  both  ex- 
tremes must  be  considered  in  our  estimate  of  the 
negro  home.  The  drop  from  these  higher  levels, 
which  are  indeed  a  very  small  part  of  the  whole,  but 
which  approximate  the  homes  of  the  best  class  of  the 
whites,  to  the  lowest  level  is  exceedingly  rapid,  and 
we  shall  find  that  this  lowest  level  contains  the  larger 
percentage  of  the  homes  of  the  race.  To  reach  any 
true  estimate  of  the  negro  home,  therefore,  we  must 
remember  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  social  group 
differing  widely  in  racial  purity  and  in  cultural  levels 
so  that  we  must  think  of  it  not  as  a  compact  and 
orderly  army  advancing  with  even  pace  and  unbroken 
line,  but  rather  as  a  struggling  heterogeneous  mass 

1  See  Dr.  Booker  Washington's  "Negro  Homes,"  Century,  May, 
1908,  Vol.  S4,  PP.  7i  ff- 


208  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

some  of  whom  are  outstripping  the  rest,  while  others 
lag  far  behind.1 

The  problem  of  the  negro  home  becomes  clearer, 
however,  when  we  understand  that  of  the  1,800,000 
negro  homes  reported  by  the  census  of  1900  approxi- 
mately three-fourths  or  1,350,000  are  in  the  country 
districts  of  the  South.2  The  problem  becomes  per- 
haps still  more  definite  when  we  realise  that  in  the 
"black  belt,"  which  contains  60  per  cent  of  the  total 
negro  population  of  the  country  and  perhaps  that 
proportion  of  negro  homes,  40  per  cent  of  the  families 
live  in  one-room  and  43  per  cent  in  two-room  cabins.3 

What,  we  ask,  are  the  difficulties  against  which  the 
home  of  the  negro  peasant  must  contend  in  the 
struggle  for  purer  ideals?  They  are,  first  of  all, 
those  of  race  and  tradition.  It  is  perhaps  extreme 
to  say,  as  does  the  author  of  "The  Negro  American 
Family,"  that  the  negro  home  of  the  "black  belt" 
"is  for  the  most  part  either  the  actual  slave  home 
or  its  lineal  descendant," 4  but  the  close  observer 
can  still  detect  underneath  the  paternalistic  regime 

1  "The  Negro  American  Family,"  The  Atlanta  University  Publi- 
cations, No.  13,  p.  127. 

1  U.  S.  Census,  Bulletin  8,  "The  Negroes  in  the  United  States," 
pp.  22,  48.  The  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  13,  "The  Negro 
American  Family,"  pp.  50  ff. 

*  The  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  13,  p.  52. 

4  Op.  cit.,  p.  50. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  2Og 

of  this  section  of  the  South  remnants  of  the  old 
slave  customs.  To  be  sure  the  big  house  with  its 
circle  of  slave  quarters  has  disappeared,  and  the  log- 
cabin  with  its  dirt  floor  has  given  place  in  many 
cases  to  the  frame  building  with  glass  windows. 
But  the  emancipated  negro  had  no  models  in  con- 
structing his  home  except  the  big  house  and  the 
slave  cabin.  He  could  not  copy  the  planter's  man- 
sion, hence  he  still  perpetuates  in  the  home  circle 
many  of  the  traditions  of  the  old  regime. 

More  important  still  for  the  development  of  the 
negro  home  have  been  the  race  traits  which  were 
discussed  in  a  previous  chapter.  It  has  been  asserted 
that  the  greatest  hindrance  to  the  creation  of  a  home 
after  the  white  model  among  the  negro  peasantry  of 
the  South  is  "the  ancient  racial  habit  of  gregarious 
communal  life."  l  The  social  centre  of  gravity  is 
thereby  placed  in  the  larger  contacts  of  the  group  life 
rather  than  in  the  immediate  personal  relations  of 
the  home.  A  respondent  writes  from  the  "black 
belt"  of  Louisiana  :  "They  will  not  stay  at  home  when 
they  can  possibly  go  anywhere  else.  Their  very 
way  of  talking  is  significant.  They  never  say  'I  live 
there'  but  'da  wha  I  stay,'  'wha  yo'  stay?"  Home 

1  Tillinghast,  op.  cit.,  p.  204.  Consult  also  U.  S.  Department 
of  Labour,  Bulletin  No.  38,  p.  118,  1902 ;  Bruce,  Plantation  Negro  as 
Freeman,  pp.  108-110. 


21 0  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

for  this  type  of  negro  is  where  he  has  the  "mos'est 
friends."  A  certain  amount  of  race  philosophy  un- 
doubtedly finds  expression  in  the  song,1 

"  Now  a  good  lookin'  man  can  git  a  home  anywhere  he  go ; 
Reason  why :  de  wimmins  tell  me  so." 

Social  workers  also  bear  testimony  to  this  trait  of  the 
negro.  "When  we  came,"  writes  a  white  woman  of 
the  "black  belt"  of  Alabama,  "we  felt  that  the  free 
living  represented  sin,  but  in  a  very  few  months  we 
believed  it  represented  the  natural  life  of  a  group  of 
people  who  had  never  been  shown  or  taught  life  on  a 
higher  plane."  z 

That  the  gregarious  impulse  is  a  menace  to  the 
integrity  and  purity  of  the  negro  home  is  evident  and 
a  fact  often  dimly  realised  by  the  negroes  themselves. 
A  negro  porter  of  a  hotel,  when  asked  by  Professor 
Kelsey  why  he  did  not  return  to  the  farm,  said,  "it 
would  be  necessary  for  him  to  get  a  wife  and  a  lot  of 
other  things."  To  the  suggestion  that  he  might 
board,  he  replied  with  astonishing  frankness :  "Niggers 
is  queer  folks,  boss.  'Pears  to  me  dey  don't  know  what 
dey  gwine  do.  Ef  I  go  out  an'  live  in  a  man's  house 
like  as  not  I  run  away  wid  dat  man's  wife."  3  The 
home  and  the  marital  tie  come  to  have  an  occasional 

1  Odum,  op.  cit.,  p.  176. 

3  The  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  13,  p.  40. 

1  The  Negro  Farmer,  p.  64. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  211 

and  adventitious  character  as  a  result  of  this  grega- 
rious tendency.  There  is  consequently  a  want  of 
domesticity  and  an  absence  of  the  home  feeling  and 
atmosphere  due  to  the  unwillingness  to  look  upon 
the  relation  as  binding  and  permanent. 

These  conditions  are  even  more  marked  among 
the  Jamaican  negroes,  and  Livingstone  excuses  them 
by  insisting  that  if  the  marital  ties  are  made  strictly 
legal  "the  risk  is  that  they  will  become  intolerable, 
and  cease  by  one  of  the  parties  leaving  the  other. 
On  the  other  hand,  when  they  are  casual,  the  necessity 
for  mutual  kindness  and  forbearance  establishes  a 
condition  that  is  the  best  guarantee  of  permanency. 
The  result  of  severance  is  not  so  hard  on  the  woman 
as  might  be  supposed.  She  continues  working  as 
before  without  the  encumbrance  of  a  husband,  or 
adopts  another  in  his  place,  and  the  children  grow 
up  or  die  as  they  would  have  grown  up  or  died  in  any 
other  circumstances.  The  system  is  barbarous  but  a 
natural  phase  of  racial  development."  1  The  planters 
of  the  "black  belt"  of  the  far  South  face  the  same 
problem,  though  in  a  milder  form,  and  use  every 
means  in  the  interest  of  the  increased  industrial 
efficiency  of  their  tenants  to  make  the  marital  tie 
more  permanent,  one  of  which  is  the  rather  ques- 
tionable hoax  of  the  "deed  of  trust  marriage." 
1  Black  Jamaica,  pp.  213,  214. 


212  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

Serious  difficulties  also  face  the  home  of  the  negro 
peasant  owing  to  environment  and  economic  condi- 
tions. What  is  the  significance  for  the  morale  of  the 
negro  home  of  the  fact  that  40  per  cent  of  the  negro 
families  of  the  "black  belt"  live  in  one-room  cabins? 
In  one  large  room  with  its  yawning  fireplace  and 
stick  and  dirt  chimney  the  entire  family,  often  con- 
sisting of  children,  grandchildren,  and  lodgers  ( ! ), 
eat  and  sleep.  The  necessary  results,  namely,  poor 
ventilation  and  light,  bad  sanitation,  unhealthful 
overcrowding,  and  poorly  prepared  food,  are  perhaps 
even  of  less  importance  than  the  inevitable  lowering 
of  the  moral  tone  of  the  family  itself.  The  deadening 
effect  of  lack  of  restraint  and  refinement  upon  the 
moral  sensibilities  can  hardly  be  overestimated. 
Modesty  and  the  sense  of  personal  privacy  so  essen- 
tial to  the  maturing  of  character  are  of  course  impos- 
sible in  the  vulgar  hurly-burly  of  such  surroundings. 
Most  serious  of  all  perhaps  is  the  effect  of  such  an 
environment  upon  the  children,  the  citizens  of  the 
future.  They  hear  words  and  witness  deeds  which 
speedily  destroy  the  native  innocence  of  childhood. 
Their  childish  songs  and  sayings  become  surcharged 
with  vulgarity,  indecency,  and  often  with  fearful 
obscenity.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing,  writes  Odum, 
to  find  "children  from  ten  to  twelve  years  of  age 
knowing  a  hundred  such  songs ;  songs  varying  in  all 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  213 

degrees  of  dirty  suggestion  and  description  sung  in 
the  home."  *  These  facts  in  regard  to  the  darker 
side  of  the  negro  home  of  the  lower  classes  must  be 
honestly  faced  by  any  one  who  seeks  the  explanation 
for  brutes  of  the  Sam  Hose  type  or  for  what  Dr. 
DuBois  calls  the  "plague  spot"  of  the  American 
negro,  namely,  his  sexual  morality. 

A  question  of  fundamental  import  for  the  negro 
home  is  the  position  and  influence  of  the  negro  woman. 
She  is  as  wife  and  mother  undoubtedly  the  central 
figure,  and  there  is  something  elemental,  even  heroic, 
in  her  nature.  One  feels  that  in  her  are  preserved 
the  best  traditions  of  the  race.  She  is  not  infre- 
quently the  real  head  of  the  household,  and  as  a 
measure  of  moral  values  she  must  be  reckoned  with 
first  of  all  in  the  negro  home.  A  negro  writer  has 
given  us  the  following  interpretation  of  the  deepest 
instincts  of  her  nature.  "The  negro  woman  with  her 
strong  desire  for  motherhood,  may  teach  modern 
civilisation  that  virginity,  save  as  a  means  of  healthy 
motherhood,  is  an  evil  and  not  a  divine  attribute. 
That  while  the  sexual  appetite  is  the  most  easily 
abused  of  all  the  human  appetites  and  most  deadly 
when  perverted,  that  nevertheless  it  is  a  legitimate, 
beneficent  appetite  when  normal,  and  that  no  civilisa- 
tion can  long  survive  which  stigmatises  it  as  essen- 
1  Op.  dt.,  p.  166. 


214  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

tially  nasty  and  only  to  be  discussed  in  shamefaced 
whispers.  The  negro  attitude  in  these  matters  is  in 
many  respects  healthier  and  more  reasonable.  Their 
sexual  passions  are  strong  and  frank,  but  they  are, 
despite  example  and  temptation,  only  to  a  limited 
degree  perverted  or  merely  commercial.  The  negro 
mother-love  and  family  instinct  is  strong,  and  it  re- 
gards the  family  as  a  means,  not  an  end,  and  although 
the  end  in  the  present  negro  mind  is  usually  personal 
happiness  rather  than  social  order,  yet  even  here 
radical  reformers  of  divorce  courts  have  something 
to  learn."  1 

It  is  quite  possible  that  we  have  here  an  important 
factor  making  for  a  divergence  of  social  values  be- 
tween the  two  racial  groups  and  likewise  the  explana- 
tion of  a  certain  ethical  latitudinarianism,  which  makes 
it  difficult  for  the  negro  to  adapt  himself  to  the  ideals 
of  the  white  home  with  its  Puritan  traditions.  Cer- 
tainly one  cannot  but  feel  that  the  negro  woman 
has  been  more  sinned  against  than  sinning  in  the 
checkered  history  of  her  race.  These  maternal 
instincts,  so  deeply  and  strongly  implanted  in  her  by 
nature,  so  often  the  instrument  of  her  debasement, 
which  enabled  her  to  take  to  her  motherly  heart  the 
offspring  of  her  white  master  as  well  as  her  own,  will 
with  the  coming  of  a  better  day  for  her  and  the  negro 

1  Atlanta  University  Publication,  No.  16,  p.  42. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  21$ 

home  attain  their  complete  fruition  and  make  her  the 
moral  and  spiritual  power  she  was  destined  to  be  in 
the  hearts  and  lives  of  her  people. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  from  the  fore- 
going that  there  has  been  no  improvement  even  in 
the  home  life  of  the  negro  peasantry  of  the  far  South 
or  that  all  occupy  the  same  moral  level.  Respondents 
from  the  border  states  of  Virginia,  Tennessee,  and 
North  Carolina  all  report  progress,  and  even  in  the 
"black  belt"  proper  a  process  of  differentiation  is 
undoubtedly  going  on.  A  respondent  from  southern 
Alabama  reports,  "the  tendency  with  the  negroes  is 
toward  separating  into  two  distinct  classes,  between 
which  there  is  but  little  in  common.  The  better 
class  is  making  some  effort  toward  purifying  their 
homes  and  raising  their  moral  standard."  A  respon- 
dent from  Mississippi  writes:  "Home  influences  are 
very  poor  .  .  .  while  some  few  families  have  made 
great  progress.  The  few  negroes  who  work  regu- 
larly and  live  right  soon  acquire  homes  and  other 
property,  and  such  negroes  usually  make  good  citizens 
and  are  so  regarded  by  most  of  the  whites." 

A  physician  of  northern  extraction  writes  from  the 
"black  belt"  of  Louisiana,  "We  know  two  classes 
of  negroes,  i,  the  'white  man's  negro'  and  2,  just 
plain  'negro.'  The  first  work  steadily,  are  known 
by  name,  and  reside  in  one  place  for  a  long  time. 


2l6  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

These  people  earn  good  wages,  can  be  depended  upon, 
usually  have  permanent  families,  are  respectful  and 
are  generally  good  characters.  The  others  are  shift- 
less, lazy,  have  a  number  of  names,  etc."  Perhaps 
the  statement  of  a  teacher  in  the  "black  belt"  of 
Mississippi  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  entire 
section.  "The  number  of  homes  where  the  pure 
ideal  of  family  life  exists  has  increased  constantly 
since  I  have  been  in  the  South  (14  years).  There 
are  some  pure  homes  among  the  poor  and  illiterate. 
Among  those  who  are  educated  the  dishonored  homes 
are  few."  1  It  still  remains  true,  nevertheless,  that 
the  negro  homes  approximating  to  any  real  extent 
those  of  the  whites  of  the  better  class  are  to  be  found 
in  the  towns  and  cities  only  and  are  far  from  numer- 
ous. Their  significance  lies  not  in  their  numbers  but 
in  the  sheer  fact  of  their  existence. 

The  negro  home  is  undoubtedly  a  fact.  Measured 
by  the  supreme  test  of  a  civilisation  and  the  only 
adequate  and  final  criterion  of  race  progress  and  ef- 
ficiency, namely,  the  ability  to  create  the  pure  home, 
it  must  be  acknowledged,  therefore,  that  the  negro 
has  made  good.  The  pure  home  is  perhaps  some- 
what discouragingly  in  the  minority  and  unknown  to 
the  masses  of  the  whites  who  hear  far  more  of  the 
spectacular  phases  of  negro  life;  but  it  exists,  and 
1  Atlanta  University  Publication,  No.  13,  p.  41. 


CREATING   A   CONSCIENCE  217 

upon  this  priceless  nucleus  the  race  must  depend  in 
its  effort  to  create  a  social  conscience.  Such  homes 
deserve  all  the  more  encouragement  and  sympathy 
because  of  the  odds  against  which  they  must  contend. 
They  are  most  numerous  in  the  towns  and  cities,  but 
are  there  forced  to  exist  in  the  least  desirable  sections, 
where  overcrowding  and  unsanitary  conditions  are 
perhaps  the  least  of  the  difficulties  against  which  the 
pure  home  must  struggle.  Even  in  the  villages  and 
country  districts  there  is  the  constant  menace  of  the 
low  social  and  moral  tone  due  to  the  absence  of  a 
healthy  social  conscience.  The  tragic  seriousness 
of  the  struggle  in  such  surroundings  for  a  pure  home 
and  its  prerequisite,  purity  of  womanhood,  is  reflected 
in  the  reply  of  the  negro  girl  when  chidden  for  her 
immorality:  "It's  no  use  talkin'  to  us  colored  girls 
like  we  wus  white.  A  white  girl  is  better  thought 
of  if  she  has  never  gone  astray,  but  a  colored  girl 
that  keeps  herself  pure  ain't  liked  socially.  We  just 
think  she  has  had  no  chance."  1 

The  betterment  of  the  negro's  home  life,  as  well 
as  the  elevation  of  his  morals,  are  inseparably  con- 
nected with  education  and  industrial  independence. 
With  the  acquisition  of  property  naturally  come  refine- 
ment and  cleaner  morals.  The  character  of  a  group 
may  be  measured  to  a  certain  extent  by  its  intelli- 

1  Odum,  op.  cit.,  p.  175. 


2l8  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

gence  and  financial  standing.  Wealth  and  enlight- 
enment do  not  indeed  create  moral  values,  but  they 
offer  the  necessary  instruments  for  the  attainment  of 
the  highest  types  of  personality.  None  realise  this 
better  than  the  negro  leaders  themselves.  A  prosper- 
ous negro  lawyer  of  Mississippi  writes  of  his  people : 
"When  the  negro  has  means  and  property  like  other 
people  as  a  rule  his  surroundings  are  better  and  more 
homelike  and  family  ties  are  closer  and  the  family 
is  better  surrounded  by  those  safeguards  always  so 
essential  to  a  clean  home  life.  Each  of  the  better 
families  in  every  locality  serves  as  a  light  and  example 
to  others.  They  are  always  pointed  to  with  pride, 
and  as  a  rule  their  example  is  emulated  by  others." 
These  words  are  an  earnest  of  that  ultimate  moral 
self-emancipation  of  the  negro  without  which  the 
symbols  of  his  political  liberties  must  remain  little 
more  than  empty  forms. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT 

THE  facts  cited  in  the  preceding  chapters  have 
doubtless  appeared  to  the  reader  antagonistic  to 
the  spirit  of  democratic  institutions.  They  seem  to 
assign  to  the  negro  a  social  and  political  status  very 
different  from  that  it  was  intended  he  should  occupy, 
if  we  are  to  judge  from  the  ideals  that  prompted  the 
federal  legislation  in  his  behalf  during  Reconstruction. 
It  may  be  profitable,  therefore,  to  ask  whether  these 
subtle  differences  of  race,  which  we  have  seen  play  such 
a  part  in  determining  the  actual  position  of  the  negro 
economically  and  socially,  have  affected  his  legal 
status  also.  Has  the  supreme  court,  in  its  interpre- 
tations of  the  congressional  acts  that  followed  the 
civil  war,  been  influenced  by  these  race  differences, 
the  psychological  analysis  of  which  we  have  attempted 
to  give  ?  The  question  is  one  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance. It  concerns  more  than  the  local  status  of  the 
negro  in  the  South.  It  is  a  question  of  the  legal 
status  of  the  race  in  American  democracy  as  that 
status  has  been  denned  in  the  decisions  of  the  highest 
tribunal  of  the  nation. 

219 


220  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

"The  supreme  court,"  says  Mr.  Bryce,  "is  the 
living  voice  of  the  constitution  —  that  is,  of  the  will 
of  the  people  expressed  in  the  fundamental  law  they 
have  enacted."  x  The  court  is  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
people  in  the  widest  sense.  It  does  not  voice  the 
transient  and  momentary  outbursts  of  public  senti- 
ment. Through  it  usually  speaks  the  sober,  reasoned 
judgment  of  an  intelligent  and  liberty-loving  people. 
The  veneration  in  which  it  is  held  by  the  masses  of 
Americans  and  the  power  it  exercises  in  the  nation's 
life  have  been  a  marvel  to  foreigners  from  De  Toc- 
queville's  day  to  the  present.  This  influence  is  all 
the  more  remarkable  as  it  is  in  its  last  analysis  moral 
rather  than  physical.  It  arises  doubtless  from  the 
feeling  of  the  nation  that  this  tribunal  is  a  faithful 
and  unprejudiced  interpreter  of  the  social  will  which 
in  a  democracy  is  the  ultimate  source  of  power  and 
authority. 

The  court's  interpretations  of  the  legal  status  of 
the  negro,  therefore,  as  that  status  was  outlined  in  the 
federal  acts  of  Reconstruction,  are  of  the  utmost  impor- 
i  tance  to  the  student  of  the  race  question.  Being  far 
removed  from  the  passions  and  prejudices  of  those  sec- 
tions where  race  friction  arises,  and  yet  with  a  thorough 
grasp  of  the  situation,  we  may  expect  to  find  the  court 
giving  expression  to  the  sober  good  sense  of  the  nation. 

1  American  Commonwealth,  I,  p.  272. 


THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT    221 

We  shall  find  indeed  that  this  is  the  case.  In  a  re- 
markable series  of  judicial  constructions  of  the  war 
amendments  and  legislation  based  thereon  the  supreme 
court  has  registered  the  changes  in  public  sentiment 
with  regard  to  the  negro  that  have  taken  place  since 
the  civil  war.  Incidentally  it  may  be  said  it  has  also 
indicated  the  futility  of  one  generation  of  legislators 
trying  to  determine  for  all  time  the  status  of  a  social 
group.  In  these  decisions,  to  be  sure,  the  court  has 
often  interpreted  the  language  of  the  war  amendments 
in  a  sense  never  intended  by  their  authors.  It  has, 
in  fact,  created  a  body  of  national  jurisprudence 
based  upon  this  legislation  in  the  form  of  decisions 
upon  concrete  cases  brought  to  it  for  adjudication. 
To  these  decisions  one  must  look,  rather  than  to  the 
acts  of  the  Reconstruction  legislators,  for  an  under- 
standing of  the  position  of  the  negro  in  American 
democracy  to-day. 

We  may  distinguish  three  stages  in  the  legal  status 
of  the  negro.  The  first  of  these  is  commensurate 
with  the  old  regime.  Under  it  legislation  in  the 
South,  where  the  masses  of  the  race  were  to  be  found, 
tended  to  emphasise  slavery  as  the  negro's  natural 
and  normal  condition.  This  is  unmistakably  evident 
in  the  old  slave  codes  of  the  southern  states.  The 
culmination  of  this  period  is  reached  in  the  famous 
Dred  Scott  case  of  1857.  In  this  decision,  the  court, 


I 


222  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

voicing  the  ideas  of  the  slave  power  then  dominant, 
declared  that  persons  of  African  ancestry,  whether 
imported  or  held  as  slaves,  could  not  become  citizens 
of  a  state  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  was  used 
in  the  federal  constitution,  even  though  emancipated 
or  born  of  free  parents.  The  court  claimed  that 
"citizens"  or  "people  of  the  United  States,"  as  these 
terms  were  employed  by  the  framers  of  the  constitu- 
tion, included  only  the  sovereign  people  who  held  the 
power  and  conducted  the  government.1  Since  he 
belonged  to  an  alien  and  subjugated  race  the  negro 
was  thought  to  have  "no  rights  which  the  white  man 
was  bound  to  respect"  and  might,  therefore,  be  justly 
reduced  to  slavery  for  the  white  man's  benefit. 
Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  inherent  wrong  of 
Justice  Taney's  much-criticised  phrase,  we  must 
remember  that  at  the  time  it  was  uttered  it  had  the 
support  of  legal  precedent,  both  state  and  national. 

The  next  stage  in  the  evolution  of  the  legal  status 
of  the  negro  is  found  in  the  war  amendments  and 
related  federal  legislation  in  connection  with  Recon- 
struction. These  enactments  were  the  last  flowering 
of  the  old  theory  of  natural  rights,  embodied  in  the 
declaration,  preached  by  the  Garrisonian  abolition- 
ists, and  championed  by  Sumner  in  his  struggle  with 
the  slave  power  in  the  senate.  They  were  made  the 
1  Const.,  Act.  I,  Sec.  I,  i. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   THE   SUPREME   COURT         22$ 

basis  of  the  attempted  political  and  social  rehabilita- 
tion of  southern  society,  and  reached  their  culmina- 
tion in  legislation,  of  which  Sumner's  civil  rights  bill 
of  1875  was  a  type. 

The  third  and  last  stage,  with  which  we  shall  be 
concerned  in  this  chapter,  deals  largely  with  the  un- 
doing of  the  work  of  the  Reconstruction  period.  Asa 
result  of  the  Reconstruction  acts  referred  to  above 
the  negroes  were  in  the  letter  of  the  law  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  political  rights  equal  to  those  of  the  whites. 
Their  political  influence,  however,  in  view  of  their 
ignorance  and  poverty  and  the  fact  that  many  whites 
were  disfranchised,  was  out  of  all  proportion  to  their 
numbers  and  importance  in  the  community.  The  Re- 
publican party,  the  champion  of  the  negro's  rights, 
assured  to  him  this  political  supremacy  since  it  con- 
trolled the  southern  political  situation  and  filled  most 
public  offices  with  blacks. 

Within  a  little  more  than  a  generation,  however, 
the  negro  was  shorn  of  practically  all  his  political 
rights.  The  federal  protection  which  Sumner  thought 
that  he  had  secured  for  the  negro  by  congressional  en- 
actment and  bayonet-rule  disappeared  with  the  break- 
down of  the  carpet-bag  regime.  In  spite  of  the  passage 
of  the  fifteenth  amendment  and  the  insertion  of  an 
universal  suffrage  clause  in  the  constitutions  of  the 
reconstructed  southern  states  the  efforts  to  make  the 


224  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

right  of  franchise  an  inalienable  possession  of  the 
black  failed  signally.  Since  1890  these  same  states, 
following  the  lead  of  Mississippi,  have  adopted  so- 
called  disfranchising  constitutions  which  have  ren- 
dered the  negro  a  negligible  factor  in  the  southern 
political  situation. 

In  this  chapter  we  shall  be  concerned  with  the 
series  of  decisions  by  which  the  supreme  court  has 
stripped  the  black  of  the  protection  of  legal  fictions 
thrown  around  him  by  the  Reconstruction  acts,  thus 
tolerating  without  necessarily  sanctioning  the  forces 
that  have  brought  about  the  present  status  of  the 
negro  in  the  South.  The  court  early  recognised  that 
the  negro  cannot  be  made  the  "favored  class"  of  the 
nation  and  the  object  of  special  legislation  without 
violating  the  genius  of  American  democracy.  It  was 
more  tardy  in  its  recognition  that  theoretical  notions 
of  equality  cannot  be  made  a  cure-all  for  fundamental 
race  differences  and  their  consequent  social  and 
political  difficulties.  The  general  assent  which  the 
nation  has  given  to  the  court's  radical  treatment  of 
the  Reconstruction  acts  is  evidence  that  all  sections 
recognise  in  the  court's  decisions  the  sober  second- 
thought  of  the  country. 

The  fourteenth  amendment  was  intended  to  be  the 
Magna  Charta  of  the  negro,  the  effectual  and  unal- 
terable warrant  of  his  liberty  and  equality  in  American 


THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT    225 

democracy.  This  amendment  was  the  direct  reply 
of  the  North  to  the  so-called  "black  codes"  of  the 
South,  the  first  attempt  to  formulate  the  legal  status 
of  the  freedmen.  The  object  of  the  act  was  to  embody 
in  the  federal  constitution  the  civil  rights  bill,  a  pre- 
liminary measure  of  Reconstruction  to  secure  to  the 
freedmen  rights  and  privileges  deemed  his  by  virtue 
of  emancipation, —  rights  it  was  feared  his  former  mas- 
ters would  ignore.  "The  civil  rights  bill,"  observed 
Mr.  Garfield  in  the  House  debate  of  May  8,  1866, 
"is  now  part  of  the  law  of  the  land.  But  every 
gentleman  knows  it  will  cease  to  be  a  part  of  the  law 
when  the  sad  moment  arrives  when  the  gentleman's 
(Mr.  Finck)  party  comes  into  power.  It  is  precisely 
for  this  reason  that  we  propose  to  lift  the  great  and 
good  law  beyond  the  reach  of  political  strife,  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  plots  and  machinations  of  any  party, 
and  fix  it  in  the  serene  sky,  in  the  eternal  firmament 
of  the  constitution,  where  no  storm  of  passion  can 
shake  it  and  no  cloud  can  obscure  it."  l 

The  amendment  was  intended  primarily  as  the 
guaranty  of  the  negro's  liberties,  but  to  compass  this 
end  its  scope  of  operation  had  to  include  a  great  deal 
more  than  these  liberties.  It  involved  an  unprece- 
dented centralisation  of  power  in  the  hands  of  the 
federal  government,  and  was  criticised  as  an  infringe- 

1  Congressional  Globe,  May,  1866,  p.  2462. 
Q 


226  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

mentof  the  favourite  southern  doctrine  of  states  rights. 
Its  tendency  was  to  nationalise  civil  rights  in  that  it 
deprived  the  state  of  the  regulation  of  the  individual's 
private  rights  and  duties  and  placed  them  in  the 
hands  of  the  central  government.  It  proposed,  in 
short,  to  provide  the  federal  government  with  a 
constitutional  sanction  for  fixing  the  details  of  the 
status  of  a  group  of  citizens  in  one  section  of  the 
country,  independent  of  and  even  in  antagonism  to 
the  intelligent  and  influential  class  of  that  section, 
and  with  small  regard  for  the  local  economic  condi- 
tions, the  social  habits  and  the  racial  differences 
involved.  The  political  unwisdom  and  the  essential 
injustice  of  such  a  policy  were  clearly  indicated  by 
Mr.  Finck  of  Ohio  in  the  House  debate  upon  the 
measure.1 

The  fourteenth  amendment  became  law  in  July, 
1868,  but  it  was  not  until  April,  1873, m  the  Slaughter 
House  cases,  that  the  supreme  court  was  called  upon 
to  interpret  its  scope  and  meaning.  It  is  signifi- 
cant that  the  first  litigation  under  this  amendment  to 
reach  the  supreme  court  had  no  direct  bearing  upon 
the  negro.  The  Slaughter  House  cases  involved  the 
constitutionality  of  an  act  of  the  Louisiana  legis- 
lature conferring  certain  rights  and  privileges  upon 
the  Crescent  City  Live  Stock  and  Slaughter  House 

1  Globe,  May  8,  1866,  p.  2461. 


THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT    227 

Company  of  New  Orleans.  It  was  claimed  that  the 
law  violated  the  fourteenth  amendment  in  that  it 
created  a  monopoly,  thus  abridging  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  citizens  and  depriving  them  of  property 
without  due  process  of  law.  In  its  decision  the 
supreme  court  pointed  out  the  differences  between 
the  two  species  of  citizenship,  state  and  federal, 
and  indicated  that  the  situation  was  one  for  state, 
not  federal,  intervention.  The  court  did  not  attempt 
to  define  the  limits  of  these  two  spheres,  but  it  took 
care  to  make  plain  that  the  privileges  and  immunities 
of  citizens  of  the  United  States,  which  alone  were 
contemplated  in  the  amendment,  were  limited  in 
number  and  special  in  character,  while  those  per- 
taining to  the  state  touched  the  individual's  life  in 
its  entirety. 

The  court  was  fully  aware  of  the  importance  of 
the  issues  involved.  "No  questions  so  far-reaching," 
says  Justice  Miller,  "so  profoundly  interesting  to  the 
people  of  this  country  .  .  .  have  been  before  this 
court  during  the  official  life  of  its  members."  The 
court  also  realised  that  its  interpretation  of  the 
amendment  was  in  a  measure  contrary  to  the  spirit 
and  intent  of  those  who  framed  it.  "It  is  nothing 
less,"  says  Justice  Field  in  the  dissenting  opinion, 
"than  the  question  whether  the  recent  amendments 
of  the  federal  constitution  protect  the  citizens  of  the 


228  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

United  States  against  the  deprivations  of  their  com- 
mon rights  by  state  legislation.  In  my  judgment 
the  fourteenth  amendment  does  afford  such  protec- 
tion, and  was  so  intended  by  the  congress  which  framed 
it  and  the  states  which  adopted  it." 

This  refusal  of  the  court  to  find  warrant  in  the 
fourteenth  amendment  for  the  interference  of  the 
federal  government  in  the  police  power  of  the  states 
was  ultimately  to  affect  the  negro  race  profoundly. 
It  implied  that  for  the  enjoyment  of  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  his  rights  and  immunities  he  must  look  to  the 
protection  of  his  own  state  and  community  rather 
than  to  the  central  government.  Strange  to  say, 
however,  the  court  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
aware  of  this  bearing  of  its  decision  upon  the  negro. 
Justice  Miller's  language  suggests  that  he  thought 
the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments  grew  out 
of  the  unusual  and  abnormal  conditions  after  the 
war  and  were  a  species  of  special  legislation  designed 
to  protect  a  newly  emancipated  race.  The  status 
of  the  negro  seems  to  have  been  divorced  in  his  mind 
from  the  question  of  civil  rights  involved  in  the 
Slaughter  House  cases.  "We  doubt  very  much," 
says  the  learned  judge,  "whether  any  action  of  a 
state  not  directed  by  way  of  discrimination  against 
the  negroes  as  a  class,  or  on  account  of  their  race, 
will  ever  be  held  to  come  within  the  purview  of  this 


THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT    22Q 

provision.  It  is  so  clearly  a  provision  for  that  race 
and  that  emergency,  that  a  strong  case  would  be 
necessary  for  its  application  to  any  other."  Even 
the  supreme  court  was  too  much  under  the  influence 
of  the  Reconstruction  period  at  this  time  to  see  any 
connection  between  their  decision  and  the  contem- 
porary high-handed  dealings  of  the  Grant  adminis- 
tration with  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  South.  The 
special  character  of  the  war  amendments  was  thought 
to  give  all  the  constitutional  sanction  necessary  for 
such  a  policy. 

It  was  only  necessary,  however,  that  the  passions 
of  the  time  abate  somewhat  for  the  logic  of  the  Slaugh- 
ter House  cases  to  rind  its  application  to  the  negro. 
This  happened  in  1875,  when  Cruikshank  and  several 
other  whites  of  Louisiana  broke  up  by  violent  means 
a  political  assemblage  of  negroes.  After  trial  and 
conviction  in  the  circuit  court  of  Louisiana,  an  appeal 
was  taken  to  the  supreme  court,  and  that  court  ac- 
quitted them  on  the  ground  that  the  fourteenth  amend- 
ment did  not  cover  such  cases.  It  affirmed  that  every 
citizen,  black  or  white,  must  look  to  his  state  rather 
than  to  the  federal  government  for  the  protection  of 
his  rights  against  the  wrongful  acts  of  individuals. 

In  this  case  the  court  laid  down  the  general  prin- 
ciple, "The  fourteenth  amendment  prohibits  a  state 
from  depriving  any  person  of  life,  liberty,  or  property 


230  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

without  due  process  of  law  and  from  denying  to  any 
person  within  its  jurisdiction  the  equal  protection 
of  the  laws ;  but  it  adds  nothing  to  the  rights  of  one 
citizen  as  against  another.  .  .  .  The  duty  of  pro- 
tecting all  its  citizens  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  equality 
of  rights  was  originally  assumed  by  the  states,  and  it 
still  remains  there.  The  only  obligations  resting  upon 
the  United  States  is  to  see  that  the  states  do  not  deny 
the  right."  Thus  at  last  did  the  court  pronounce 
null  and  void  the  effort  of  the  statesmen  of  Recon- 
struction to  create  for  the  negro  a  special  legal  status 
which  amounted  in  fact  to  making  him  the  ward  of 
the  nation. 

The  supreme  court  also  pronounced  unconstitu- 
tional Sumner's  supplementary  civil  rights  bill  of 
1875.  This  was  a  drastic  measure,  the  logical  out- 
come of  the  original  spirit  and  intent  of  the  fourteenth 
amendment,  making  it  a  crime  within  federal  juris- 
diction to  deny  to  negroes  equality  in  public  con- 
veyances, theatres,  hotels,  and  the  like.  This  was 
done  in  1883,  when  in  a  series  of  civil  rights  cases  the 
court  declared  that  the  rights  contemplated  by  the 
act  of  1875  were  more  social  than  civil,  and  in  either 
case  would  lie  beyond  the  judicial  power  of  the  United 
States. 

As  to  this  judicial  power  the  court  made  the  follow- 
ing statement,  which  doubtless  reflects  the  drift  of 


THE   NEGRO   AND    THE   SUPREME   COURT         231 

public  sentiment:  "When  a  man  has  emerged  from 
slavery  and  by  the  aid  of  beneficent  legislation  has 
shaken  off  the  inseparable  concomitants  of  that  state, 
there  Tmist  be  some  stage  in  the  progress  of  his  eleva- 
tion when  he  takes  the  rank  of  a  mere  citizen,  and 
ceases  to  be  the  special  favorite  of  the  laws,  and  when 
his  rights  as  a  citizen  or  a  man  are  to  be  protected  in 
the  ordinary  modes  by  which  other  men's  rights  are 
protected."  This  was  the  last  step  in  the  process 
of  stripping  the  negro  of  those  legal  fictions  which 
prevented  him  from  finding  his  natural  level  in  a 
democracy.  It  left  him  with  practically  no  other 
basis  for  his  rights  and  privileges  than  his  own  in- 
herent merits  and  proven  social  worth  and  the  sym- 
pathy and  sense  of  justice  of  his  former  masters. 

Since  1868  some  five  hundred  and  seventy-five  cases 
involving  the  fourteenth  amendment  have  come  be- 
fore the  supreme  court  for  adjudication.  Only 
twenty-seven,  or  less  than  5  per  cent  of  these  have 
dealt  with  the  negro.  By  far  the  greater  portion  of 
the  litigation  under  this  act  has  been  concerned  with 
the  federal  regulation  of  industrial  combinations. 
Organised  capital  rather  than  the  negro  race  has  in- 
voked the  protection  of  the  fourteenth  amendment 
against  state  interference.  Of  the  twenty-seven  cases 
concerned  with  the  negro,  twenty  were  decided  ad- 
versely to  the  race  for  whose  benefit  the  act  was 


DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

framed.  The  six  decisions  favouring  federal  inter- 
vention in  modified  forms  are  concerned  for  the  most 
part  with  the  refusal  to  admit  negroes  to  jury  service 
in  the  state  courts. 

An  analysis  of  these  twenty-seven  cases  is  most 
instructive  as  indicating  the  legal  status  that  is  being 
assigned  the  negro  in  American  democracy.  The 
earlier  cases  dealt  with  attempts  to  initiate  under 
the  amendment  direct  congressional  legislation,  this 
special  legislation  to  be  made  the  basis  of  federal 
intervention  in  behalf  of  the  negro.  These  have  now 
only  an  historical  value.  The  nation  soon  realised 
that  the  amendment  could  not  be  exploited  as  a 
special  act  in  favour  of  the  negro  without  doing  vio- 
lence to  the  spirit  and  intent  of  American  institutions. 
In  other  instances,  following  the  decisions  of  the 
court  in  the  Slaughter  House  and  Cruikshank  cases, 
the  protection  of  the  amendment  has  been  sought 
on  the  ground  that  the  power  of  the  state  has  been 
made  use  of  in  a  way  that  denies  to  persons  within 
its  jurisdiction  the  equal  protection  of  the  laws,  con- 
trary to  the  intent  of  the  act.  _ 

.^  •• 

These  later  decisions  have  touched  upon  such  im- 
portant questions  of  race  adjustment  as  discrimina- 
tions in  the  penalties  for  crime  based  upon  race, 
racial  discrimination  in  education,  in  public  convey- 
ances, and  in  jury  service.  In  1882,  in  the  case  of 


THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT    233 

Pace  vs.  Alabama,  the  court  decided  that  a  section 
of  the  state  code  of  Alabama  providing  severer  pun- 
ishment for  fornication  and  adultery  between  negroes 
and  whites  than  between  members  of  the  same  race 
was  not  in  violation  of  the  equal  protection  of  the 
laws  guaranteed  by  the  fourteenth  amendment. 
Again  in  1894  that  tribunal  decided  that  Plessy,  a 
negro,  convicted  under  the  Jim  Crow  law  of  Louisiana, 
could  not  claim  the  aid  of  the  "equal  protection" 
clause  of  the  amendment  since  the  Louisiana  law  was 
a  proper  exercise  of  the  police  power  of  the  state. 
In  other  cases  the  court  has  decided  that  the  state 
has  the  power  to  separate  the  races  in  the  schools. 
The  cases  of  racial  discrimination  in  the  matter  of 
jury  service  will  be  considered  later,  as  they  involve 
also  the  application  of  the  fifteenth  amendment. 

In  the  decisions  just  cited  the  supreme  court  has 
definitely  sanctioned  distinctions  in  law  based  upon 
race  and  colour.  In  so  doing  it  has  tacitly  read  a 
notion  of  equality  into  the  "equal  protection"  clause 
of  the  amendment  very  different  from  that  in  the 
minds  of  the  men  who  framed  it  originally.  The 
court  has  assumed,  and  in  its  assumption  has  un- 
doubtedly given  expression  to  public  sentiment,  that 
the  highest  good  of  the  community  may  be  best 
attained  under  certain  local  conditions  by  legal  dis- 
tinctions which  divide  the  community  into  two  racial 


234  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

groups.  ^  The  assumption  is  that  one  man  may  be 
the  equal  of  another,  though  they  occupy  different 
racial  groups. 

In  the  case  of  Plessy  vs.  Ferguson,  involving  the 
validity  of  Louisiana's  Jim  Crow  law  of  1890,  Justice 
Brown  makes  the  following  exceeding  significant 
statement.  "The  object  of  the  amendment  was 
undoubtedly  to  enforce  the  absolute  equality  of  the 
races  before  the  law,  but  in  the  nature  of  things  it 
could  not  have  been  intended  to  abolish  distinctions 
based  upon  color,  or  to  enforce  social,  as  distinguished 
from  political,  equality,  or  the  commingling  of  the 
two  races  upon  terms  unsatisfactory  to  either.  Laws 
permitting,  and  even  requiring,  their  separation  in 
places  where  they  are  liable  to  be  brought  into  con- 
tact do  not  necessarily  imply  the  inferiority  of  either 
race  to  the  other,  and  have  been  generally,  if  not  uni- 
versally, recognised  as  within  the  competency  of 
state  legislatures  in  the  exercise  of  their  police  powers. 
The  most  common  instance  of  this  is  connected  with 
the  establishment  of  separate  schools  for  white  and 
colored  children,  which  has  been  held  to  be  valid 
exercise  of  the  legislative  power  —  even  by  courts  of 
states  where  the  political  rights  of  the  colored  race 
have  been  longest  and  most  earnestly  enforced." 

The  implications  of  this  principle  of  race  segrega- 
tion which  the  supreme  court  has  sanctioned  bid  fair 


THE   NEGRO   AND   THE   SUPREME   COURT         23$ 

to  play  an  important  part  in  modifying  our  concep- 
tions of  democracy  so  far  as  the  negro  is  concerned. 
The  court  has  admitted  that  the  racial  grouping  of 
society  is  necessary  under  certain  circumstances  to  a 
stable  social  equilibrium.  It  claims,  however,  that 
the  spirit  of  the  fourteenth  amendment  is  maintained 
by  the  equal  application  of  the  laws  within  the  racial 
groups.  This  equal  application  of  the  laws  can  only 
be  secured  in  one  of  two  ways ;  by  all  the  members  of 
each  group  cooperating  to  enforce  them  within  that 
group  or  by  the  members  of  both  groups  uniting  for 
their  enforcement.  But  we  have  seen  that  social 
solidarity  and  social  sanctions  hold  only  within  the 
group ;  there  are  few  or  no  sanctions  that  bind  both 
groups  alike.  Furthermore,  while  the  groups  are 
entirely  separate  they  are  not  equally  autonomous  and 
self-sufficient  and  do  not  cooperate  on  equal  terms. 
The  only  condition  upon  which  the  members  of  the 
negro  group  are  allowed  to  cooperate  with  those  of  the 
white  group  is  upon  the  unconditional  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  superiority  of  the  white  group. 

We  have,  therefore,  this  paradoxical  situation. 
The  two  races  live  together  under  a  theoretical  de- 
mocracy which  guarantees  to  each  individual  equal 
enjoyment  of  all  rights  and  privileges  within  his  own 
group.  But  as  the  social  solidarity  and  the  sanctions 
which  these  rights  presuppose  are  valid  only  within 


236  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

the  groups  and  not  between  the  groups  we  have  a  real 
democracy  only  among  the  members  of  the  dominant 
group.  The  members  of  the  weaker  group  enjoy  a 
residuary  democracy,  since  the  ultimate  sanctions  of 
their  rights  and  privileges  are  to  be  found  in  the  will 
of  the  stronger  group.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  the 
placing  of  legal  sanction  upon  the  matter  of  race 
segregation  amounts  in  the  end  to  sanctioning  a 
limited  democracy,  or  what  may  be  called  perhaps  a 
white-man- democracy.  Any  other  form  of  democ- 
racy, under  the  circumstances,  would  be  impossible. 
The  law  and  the  courts  are  unable  to  bring  about 
democratic  conditions  when  the  ethnic  and  social 
prerequisites  are  lacking. 

The  fifteenth  even  more  than  the  fourteenth  amend- 
ment bears  evidence  of  the  unusual  conditions  under 
which  it  was  formulated.  Unlike  the  fourteenth  it 
contains  a  distinct  reference  to  the  negro  and  was 
intended  to  guarantee  to  him  the  right  of  suffrage. 
In  the  debate  upon  the  act,  Howard  of  Michigan  said, 
"Why  not  come  out  plainly  and  frankly  to  the  world 
and  say  what  we  mean.  .  .  .  Give  us  the  colored 
man  for  that  and  that  only  is  the  object  now  before 
us."  r  The  measure  was  intended  primarily  to  meet 
conditions  in  the  South.  The  general  feeling  was 

1  Mathews,  Legislative  and  Judicial  History  of  the  Fifteenth  Amend- 
ment, p.  32. 


THE   NEGRO   AND   THE   SUPREME   COURT         237 

that  the  loyal  states  of  the  North  should  be  treated 
differently  in  the  matter  of  suffrage.  "Over  the 
former,"  writes  the  editor  of  the  Nation,  August  2, 
1866,  "congress  has  no  power  to  regulate  the  suffrage, 
according  to  the  general  belief  of  the  community, 
while  over  the  latter  the  weight  of  opinion  asserts 
its  authority."  This  indicates  the  prevailing  idea 
as  to  the  purpose  of  the  act. 

The  motives  influencing  the  fortieth  congress  to 
unite  in  the  effort  to  perpetuate  negro  suffrage  by  a 
constitutional  amendment  were  varied.  The  most 
influential  motive  was  doubtless  the  political.  The 
Republican  party  realised  that  the  basis  of  its  control 
of  the  southern  situation  was  the  negro  vote.  The 
politicians  felt  that  as  soon  as  the  whites  of  the  South 
regained  control  of  their  own  affairs  they  would 
speedily  find  means  for  eliminating  that  which  had 
proven  the  root  of  all  the  ills  of  Reconstruction, 
namely,  negro  suffrage.  Hence  the  party  in  control 
sought  to  place  the  source  of  its  power  upon  a 
permanent  basis  in  the  form  of  a  suffrage  amend- 
ment to  the  federal  constitution.  This  was  the  con- 
trolling motive  in  the  passage  of  the  act. 

The  schemes  of  the  politicians  found  support  also 
in  the  widespread  desire,  manifest  in  all  Reconstruc- 
tion legislation,  to  strengthen  the  central  government. 
It  was  felt  that  the  federal  government  should  have 


238  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

more  control  over  the  right  of  suffrage,  especially  as 
it  was  viewed  as  the  right  preservative  of  all  rights. 

Last  but  not  least  came  the  humanitarians,  who 
insisted  that  the  right  to  vote  was  inherent  in  human 
nature  and  so  should  be  commensurate  with  citizen- 
ship in  the  nation.  This  was  the  latest-born  offspring 
of  the  old  doctrine  of  inalienable  and  unalterable 
natural  rights.  The  emphasis  placed  upon  the  word 
"right"  in  the  language  of  the  amendment  was  a 
concession  to  such  humanitarians  as  Edmunds  and 
Sumner.  They  claimed  that  the  fourteenth  amend- 
ment had  conferred  the  right  of  franchise  upon  the 
negro  in  laying  down  the  definition  of  citizens  of  the 
United  States.  This  interpretation  has  subse- 
quently been  declared  untenable  by  the  supreme 
court. 

Six  years  intervened  between  the  promulgation 
of  the  fifteenth  amendment  in  1870  and  the  first 
decision  of  the  supreme  court  based  upon  it.  During 
this  period  decisions  in  the  lower  courts  involving 
the  amendment  had  laid  down  the  two  principles, 
(a)  that  the  act  cannot  confer  the  right  to  vote  be- 
cause it  is  vested  in  the  state,  and  (6)  that  conviction 
under  the  amendment  can  only  be  because  of  dis- 
crimination on  account  of  race,  colour,  or  previous 
condition  of  servitude.  In  the  case  of  United  States 
vs.  Reese  (1876)  the  supreme  court  placed  its  approval 


THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  SUPREME  COURT    239 

upon  these  two  principles.  It  neither  affirmed  nor 
denied  the  third  principle  laid  down  in  the  decisions 
of  the  lower  courts ;  namely,  that  the  amendment 
extends  to  the  criminal  acts  of  private  persons  as  well 
as  to  those  of  state  and  national  governments.  Not 
until  1903,  in  the  case  of  James  vs.  Bowman,  did  the 
court  assert  definitely  that  the  amendment  "relates 
solely  to  action  by  the  United  States  or  by  any  state 
and  does  not  contemplate  wrongful  individual  acts." 
The  hesitancy  of  the  supreme  court  in  arriving  at 
this  conclusion  grew  out  of  the  feeling,  already  in 
evidence  in  the  lower  courts,  that  if  the  amendment 
could  not  be  invoked  as  a  protection  against  individual 
acts,  its  practical  value  as  an  instrument  for  securing 
to  the  negro  the  vote  would  disappear.1  Such  an 
interpretation,  however,  apart  from  the  language  of 
the  act  itself,  was  inevitable.  It  accords  with  the 
principles  laid  down  in  the  construction  of  the  four- 
teenth amendment.  Furthermore,  it  harmonises  with 
the  genius  of  American  democracy,  the  tendency  of 
which  is  to  place  upon  the  state  the  burden  of  re- 
sponsibility in  denning  and  maintaining  the  rights  of 
the  individuals  or  classes  that  compose  its  citizenship. 
In  the  matter  of  the  vote,  just  as  in  the  case  of  Sum- 
ner's  famous  civil  rights  bill,  the  court  swept  away  the 
last  vestige  of  that  special  legal  status  which  poli- 

1  Mathews,  op.  tit.,  p.  114. 


240  DEMOCRACY  AND   RACE   FRICTION 

ticians,  nationalists,  and  humanitarians  of  the  fortieth 
congress  sought  to  confer  upon  the  negro.  This 
meant  that  he  must  take  his  place  with  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  electorate  of  his  state,  subject  to  the  same 
franchise  limitations  as  others,  with  the  single  excep- 
tion that  there  shall  be  no  discrimination  against  him 
in  the  application  of  franchise  laws  because  of  race, 
colour,  or  previous  condition. 

After  the  year  1890,  the  question  as  to  whether 
the  fifteenth  amendment  inhibits  wrongful  acts  of 
individuals  played  a  less  important  part  in  the  judi- 
cial interpretations.  This  date  marks  the  transition 
from  the  policy  of  violence  and  intimidation  to  that 
of  legal  disfranchisement  in  the  South.  In  1890, 
Mississippi  adopted  the  first  of  the  so-called  dis- 
franchising constitutions.  The  "Mississippi  plan" 
has  since  been  followed  with  modifications  by  almost 
all  the  southern  states.  The  result  is  that  the  fifteenth 
amendment  is  now  invoked  as  a  protection  against 
more  subtle  racial  discriminations  in  the  matter  of 
the  franchise  masquerading  under  apparent  legal  sanc- 
tions. 

The  case  of  Williams  vs.  Mississippi,  adjudicated 
by  the  supreme  court  in  1893,  is  typical.  Williams, 
a  negro  citizen  of  Washington  County,  Mississippi, 
was  indicted  for  murder  and  condemned  by  a  white 
jury.  The  state  laws  require  that  jurors  shall  be 


THE   NEGRO   AND   THE   SUPREME   COURT         241 

qualified  voters,  able  to  read  and  write  and  interpret 
sections  of  the  constitution.  Out  of  the  135  members 
of  the  state  constitutional  convention  of  1890  that 
drew  up  these  regulations  only  one  was  a  negro. 
Furthermore,  the  officials  who  apply  the  franchise 
tests  are  whites.  The  plaintiff  moved  to  quash  the 
indictment  on  the  ground  that  the  jury  was  uncon- 
stitutional. He  asserted  that  it  was  based  upon  an 
electorate  that  violated  the  fifteenth  amendment. 
It  involved  by  consequence  a  denial  of  the  equal 
protection  guaranteed  by  the  fourteenth  amendment. 
It  was  not  asserted  that  the  franchise  provisions  con- 
tained inherent  discriminations  against  the  negro 
but  that  by  granting  large  discretion  to  the  white 
registrars  these  provisions  became  in  actual  practice 
a  well-devised  plan  to  deprive  the  negroes  of  the 
franchise  on  racial  grounds  only. 

The  court  decided  that  there  was  nothing  in  the 
language  of  the  constitution  or  of  the  laws  of  the 
state  that  showed  discrimination  against  the  negro 
because  of  race.  "It  has  not  been  shown,"  says 
Justice  McKenna,  "that  their  actual  administration 
was  evil,  only  that  evil  was  possible  under  them." 
The  inherent  difficulty  of  the  situation  was  stated  by 
the  court  in  an  earlier  decision.  "It  may  be  said 
with  much  probability  that  disingenuous  judges  of 
elections  who  are  prejudiced  against  the  amendment 


242  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

may  refuse  to  allow  a  citizen  to  qualify  himself  to 
vote,  ostensibly  for  some  reason  not  within  the  pur- 
view of  the  act,  but  really  and  in  fact  on  account  of 
his  race.  But  this  is  a  question  of  fact,  and,  if  the 
evidence  is  sufficient,  the  jury  will  be  bound  to  dis- 
regard the  pretences  of  the  defendant  and  find  accord- 
ing to  what  appears  to  have  been  the  fact."  l 

In  taking  this  position  the  supreme  court  has  wisely 
decided  not  to  go  back  of  the  facts.  It  has  realised 
the  impossibility  of  controlling  or  reducing  to  legal 
formulas  the  subtle  forces  of  racial  antipathy  which 
may  or  may  not  have  operated  in  debarring  the  negro 
from  the  franchise  or  jury  service.  Such  social  forces 
are  not  to  be  coerced  or  eradicated  by  the  utterances 
of  courts  of  law ;  they  are  rather  the  forces  that  in 
the  end  determine  the  laws. 

The  court  itself  with  its  broad  grasp  of  the  facts  and 
keen  appreciation  of  the  power  of  public  sentiment, 
from  which  all  laws  get  their  ultimate  sanction  and 
authority,  has  already  suggested  the  only  effective 
remedy  for  such  problems.  In  the  case  of  a  negro, 
Giles,  refused  registration  in  Montgomery  County, 
Alabama,  the  court  declared,  "Apart  from  damages 
to  the  individual,  relief  from  a  great  political  wrong, 
if  done  ...  by  the  people  of  a  state  and  the  state 
itself,  must  be  given  by  them  or  by  the  legislative 

1  Mathews,  op.  cit.,  p.  117. 


243 

and  political  department  of  the  government  of  the 
United  States."  1  It  is  not  probable  that  congress 
will  ever  again  undertake  the  difficult  task  of  regu- 
lating the  relations  of  the  races  by  federal  legislation. 
Hence,  the  ultimate  solution  of  the  franchise  and 
related  problems,  in  so  far  as  they  admit  of  solution, 
rests  with  those  immediately  concerned,  namely, 
the  whites  and  blacks  of  the  South.  So  strong  is  the 
hold  of  this  idea  upon  the  masses  of  the  nation  that  it 
has  come  to  constitute  a  sort  of  "unwritten  amend- 
ment to  the  amendment  to  the  constitution."  2 

In  summarising  the  results  of  this  examination 
of  the  judicial  interpretation  of  Reconstruction  legis- 
lation we  may  ask  ourselves  what  has  the  negro  gained 
from  it?  The  trend  of  the  supreme  court  decisions 
indicates  that,  aside  from  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
the  negro  race  can  point  to-day  to  little  of  positive 
benefit  from  the  legislation  dating  from  this  period. 
The  statesmen  who  followed  the  emancipation  proc- 
lamation and  the  thirteenth  amendment  with  further 
legislative  measures,  intended  to  make  the  ex-slave 
the  equal  of  his  former  master  in  civil  and  political 
affairs,  have  failed.  This  is  due  primarily  to  funda- 
mental changes  in  public  opinion,  reflected  to  a  large 
degree  in  the  decisions  of  the  supreme  court,  which 

1  Mathews,  op.  tit.,  p.  125. 

2  Nation,  July  9,  1903,  p.  28. 


244  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

have  made  these  enactments  a  dead  letter.  Legis- 
lative acts,  though  having  all  the  authority  of  the 
national  government  and  embodied  in  the  federal 
constitution,  are  already  in  process  of  repeal  when  not 
supported  by  public  opinion. 

Perhaps  the  most  tragic  feature  of  the  whole  situa- 
tion is  that  the  masses  of  the  negroes  have  remained 
throughout  this  memorable  struggle  largely  ignorant 
of  the  issues  involved.  The  very  language  of  these 
famous  amendments,  "life,  liberty  and  property," 
"due  process  of  law,"  "equal  protection  of  the  law," 
"citizen,"  and  the  like  are  products  of  a  race  genius 
widely  divergent  from  that  of  the  negro.  They  pre- 
suppose a  long  series  of  victories  and  defeats  in  the 
struggle  for  constitutional  liberty  which  have  edu- 
cated the  Anglo-Saxon  up  to  a  true  appreciation  of 
their  significance.  To  superimpose  these  ideas  upon 
the  negro  without  giving  him  the  time  necessary  for 
living  himself  into  that  inner  group  experience  of 
which  they  are  but  the  expression  is  to  make  of 
these  august  symbols  of  democracy  a  mockery  and  a 
farce. 

Any  sense  of  inequality  with  the  white  which  the 
negro  feels  and  yet  is  not  able  to  overcome  is  in- 
evitable accentuated  by  such  a  situation.  A  writer 
who  has  given  the  problem  much  study  remarks, 
"It  is  one  of  the  fundamental  precepts  of  political 


THE   NEGRO   AND   THE   SUPREME   COURT         245 

science  to-day  that  only  those  people  in  a  community 
can  participate  equally  in  its  civic,  social,  and  political 
life  who  are  conscious  of  a  common  origin,  share  a 
common  idealism,  and  look  forward  to  a  common 
destiny.  Where  the  community  is  composed  of 
two  divergent  races  rendering  such  a  community  of 
life  impossible,  the  weaker  and  less  favored  race 
must  inevitably  and  in  the  nature  of  things  take  the 
place  assigned  to  it  by  the  stronger  and  dominant 
race."  l 

The  supreme  court's  interpretation  of  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth  amendments  has  demonstrated 
another  fact  also,  namely,  the  bankruptcy  of  the  old 
theory  of  natural  rights.  The  sublime  assurance 
with  which  Sumner,  Garfield,  Edmunds,  and  others 
assumed  the  essential  equality  of  all  men  by  virtue 
of  certain  natural  rights,  a  "God-given  franchise," 
which  they  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  define  further, 
has  disappeared.  The  most  vigorous  repudiation 
of  the  doctrine  often  comes  from  the  sons  of  those  who 
championed  it.2  Their  vision  of  an  ideal  social  and 

1  Collins,  "The  Fourteenth  Amendment  and  the  Negro  Question," 
American  Law  Review,  1911,  p.  855. 

2  Charles  Francis  Adams,  writing  from  the  banks  of  the  upper 
Nile,  decries  the  "utter  fallacy  of  the  theoretical  rights-of-man  and 
philanthropical  African-and-brother  doctrines.     In  plain  vernacular 
English  they  are  'rot';  —  'rot'  which  I  myself  have  indulged  in  to 
considerable  extent  and  in  the  face  of  observable  facts  which  would 


246  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

political  order  based  upon  these  "vague,  irresponsible 
oracles  of  Nature"  has  now  little  more  significance 
than  an  iridescent  dream. 

not  down,  have  had  to  outgrow.  .  .  .  The  work  done  by  those  who 
were  in  political  control  at  the  close  of  our  civil  war  was  done  in  utter 
ignorance  of  ethnologic  law  and  total  disregard  of  unalterable  fact. " 
"Reflex  Light  from  Africa,"  Century,  New  Series,  Vol.  50,  pp.  107, 
109. 


CHAPTER  IX 
EQUALITY  BEFORE  THE  LAW 

THE  chapter  just  preceding  has  sufficed  to  show 
that  the  fundamental  mistake  of  the  framers  of  the 
war  amendments  was  the  attempt  to  bring  about 
democratic  conditions  at  the  South  through  outside' 
coercion.  The  supreme  court  by  a  series  of  wise 
decisions  has  shown  that  the  constitutional  sanctions 
for  federal  intervention  are  limited  and  definite.  It 
may  be  contended,  however,  that  the  essential  spirit 
and  intent  of  these  acts  is  still  valid ;  namely,  the  se- 
curing of  equality  before  the  law  of  all  citizens  of  the 
commonwealth  —  not  an  equality  of  social  position, 
of  racial  or  individual  capacity,  but  an  equality  as 
citizens  in  the  common  enjoyment  of  legal  rights. 

It  is  most  interesting  to  hear  a  progressive  southern 
writer  commend  these  amendments  as  expressing 
after  all  the  logical  implications  of  American  democ- 
racy as  applied  to  the  most  difficult  problem  that 
has  ever  faced  the  nation  —  the  affiliation  of 
two  widely  divergent  races  within  the  same  demo- 
cratic order.  Because  they  are  true  to  the  genius 
of  American  democracy,  he  contends  that  these  ideals 

247 


248  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

will  abide.  "The  American  claims  them  and  honours 
them  as  part  of  the  traditions  of  his  heritage.  Condi- 
tions may  obscure  them,  grave  and  unescapable  diffi- 
culties may  seem  to  compromise  their  reality  and 
postpone  their  recognition,  but  our  whole  country, 
North  and  South,  is  steadily  moving  toward  them 
rather  than  away  from  them.  In  their  keeping  is  the 
future,  for  they  are  of  that  moral  and  indefectible  order 
which  shall  outwatch  the  blunders  and  tragedies  of 
our  generation."  1 

Such  vigorous  optimism  leads  us  to  ask  what,  after 
all,  is  the  practical  significance  of  "equality  before  the 
law  "  for  the  negro  ?  We  hardly  agree  with  the  writer 
when  he  asserts  that  the  rights  implied  in  this  term 
are  based  upon  a  "moral  and  indefectible  order."  We 
seem  to  catch  here  the  echo  of  the  outworn  doctrine 
of  natural  rights  taught  by  Sumner  and  the  humani- 
tarians. All  rights  are  an  outgrowth  of  past  social 
experience  and  reflect  the  character  and  genius  of  a 
people.  At  the  roots  of  that  character  lie  race  traits 
and  temperamental  peculiarities  which  condition  in 
innumerable  subtle  ways  the  behaviour  of  the  group. 
Where  the  social  order  is  composed  of  widely  divergent 
racial  groups  only  those  generalisations  are  safe 
which  correspond  to  common  characteristics  in  the 

1  E.  G.  Murphy,  "Shall  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  be  Enforced  ?" 
North  American  Review,  Vol.  180,  p.  131. 


EQUALITY   BEFORE   THE   LAW  249 

groups  concerned.  When  they  presuppose  more 
than  is  actually  present  to  all  they  become  useless, 
often  dangerous.  For  this  reason,  writes  Professor 
Cutler,  "A  judicial  system  adapted  to  a  highly  civ- 
ilised and  cultured  race  is  not  equally  applicable  to  a 
race  of  inferior  civilisation,  and  the  failure  to  realise! 
this  fact  and  act  upon  it,  by  making  special  provision 
for  the  control  of  the  negro  population  in  the  southern 
states  since  slavery  was  abolished  is  a  fundamental 
reason  for  the  disrepute  into  which  legal  procedure 
has  fallen  as  regards  negroes  accused  of  offenses 
against  the  whites."  l  The  baleful  influence  of  Re- 
construction is  still  felt  in  that  in  some  quarters 
political  abstractions  tend  still  to  control  where  race 
traits  and  the  consequent  social  and  economic  differ- 
entiations should  be  the  determining  factors. 

One  must  admire  the  magnanimous  sentiment  of 
Mr.  E.  Gardner  Murphy,  when  he  declares  that  "the 
deeper  mind  of  the  South"  is  responding  to  the 
principles  of  equality  before  the  law  in  racial  as 
well  as  other  questions.  He  insists  that  the  number 
of  the  intelligent  voters  among  the  negroes  must  be 
increased,  their  economic  opportunities  enlarged, 
their  liberties  confirmed,  and  their  loyalty  to  American 
institutions  strengthened  by  the  realisation  that  they 
are  included  in  the  scope  of  American  democracy. 

1  Cutler,  Lynch  Law,  p.  225. 


250  DEMOCRACY   AND  RACE   FRICTION 

In  the  same  connection,  however,  the  writer  empha- 
sises his  profound  disapproval  of  "  any  social  admixt- 
ure or  amalgamation  of  the  races."  l  This  splendid 
optimism  ignores  the  fact,  distinctly  taught  by  the 
history  of  human  society  and  of  American  democracy, 
that  the  negro  can  only  become  able  "to  stand  upon 
his  own  feet  before  the  white  man's  law  and  take  the 
white  man's  test"  of  civilisation  by  sharing  in  this 
social  admixture  and  racial  amalgamation  so  vigor- 
ously opposed.  It  was  pointed  out  in  previous  chap- 
ters how  the  maturing  of  the  character  of  the  white 
in  the  intimacy  of  the  home  and  social  circles  of  his 
own  race  group  makes  him  social  and  solid  with  his 
fellows.  This  insures  his  complete  understanding 
of  the  principles  of  democracy  inherited  from  his 
fathers.  The  negro  does  not  have  access  to  the  white 
home  where  white  citizenship  is  trained.  Whatever 
training  he  gets  for  meeting  the  tests  of  the  white  man's 
laws  and  the  white  man's  civilisation  is  gained  out- 
side the  white  group  and  within  homes  that  are  under 
the  racial  taboo. 

These  facts  must  condition  our  idea  of  what  is 
meant  by  "equality  before  the  law."  So  long  as 
they  exist  the  term  must  mean  one  thing  for  the  white 
and  another  for  the  black.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
secure  the  equal  operation  of  laws  and  political 

1  North  American  Review,  Vol.  180,  p.  132. 


EQUALITY   BEFORE   THE   LAW  251 

institutions  in  two  racial  groups  where  the  members 
of  the  one  group  are  denied  that  social  admixture 
which  is  the  indispensable  means  of  absorbing  the 
inner  life  and  group  experience  of  which  these  laws  are 
but  the  external  expression.  To  be  sure,  the  great- 
est living  representative  of  the  race,  Dr.  Washing- 
ton, in  his  famous  Atlanta  utterance,  "in  all  things 
purely  social  as  separate  as  the  ringers,  yet  one  as 
the  hand  in  all  things  essential  to  mutual  progress," 
implies  that  equality  before  the  laws  may  exist  side 
by  side  with  the  social  inequalities  of  the  "colour 
line."  This  dictum  was  received  with  applause, 
not  only  by  the  Atlanta  audience,  but  by  the  nation.1 
But  another  negro,  Professor  Kelly  Miller,  with 
a  deeper  insight  into  the  problem,  has  said,  "With- 
out social  equality,  which  the  Teuton  is  sworn  to 
withhold  from  the  darker  races,  no  other  form  of 
equality  is  possible."2  The  ultimate  meaning  of 
"equality  before  the  law"  is  equal  access,  so  far  as 
this  is  possible,  with  other  members  of  society  to  that 
which  is  indispensable  to  the  individual  for  the  matur- 
ing of  character  and  the  attainment  of  the  highest  / 
type  of  culture  of  which  he  is  capable.  When  this 
is  denied  a  group,  as  it  is  denied  the  negro  by  the 

1  It  is  quoted  with  approval  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Oct.,  1901, 

P.  437- 

2  The  Southern  Workman,  1900,  p.  601. 


252  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

"colour  line,"  the  rights  guaranteed  by  the  law  be- 
come idle  forms  or  bitter  reminders  of  the  unredeemed 
pledges  of  democracy.  The  protest  of  Dr.  DuBois 
and  other  leading  negro  writers  against  the  social 
taboo  that  prevents  the  intermarriage  of  the  races 
follows  out  the  logical  conclusions  of  American  de- 
mocracy. 

The  tragic  seriousness  of  the  situation  in  sections 
where  masses  of  whites  and  blacks  are  brought  to- 
gether under  an  advanced  democracy,  as  in  the  South, 
is  at  once  evident.  Theoretically  the  members  of 
each  race  group  are  loyal  to  a  democracy  which  guar- 
antees to  all  equality  before  the  laws  together  with 
the  social  and  cultural  implications  of  that  term. 
The  stern  facts  of  the  actual  social  situation,  how- 
ever, illustrate  the  futility  of  such  an  ideal  at  every 
turn.  Side  by  side  with  the  written  constitution 
and  its  democratic  principles  has  developed  an 
unwritten  constitution,  the  outgrowth  of  custom 
and  tradition  and  organically  related  to  the  actual 
facts  of  race  differences  and  social  conditions.  This 
unwritten  constitution  is  essentially  white-man- 
democratic.  It  antagonises  the  principles  of  Ameri- 
can democracy  which  presuppose  a  social  solidarity 
arising  out  of  a  common  ethnic  solidarity  with  all 
that  this  implies.  Furthermore,  strict  loyalty  to 
democracy  must  inevitably  bring  about  this  ethnic 


EQUALITY   BEFORE    THE   LAW  253 

solidarity  upon  which  democratic  solidarity  is  based. 
American  democracy  tends  to  fuse  all  the  various 
peoples  that  come  to  it  from  the  old  world  and  to 
subordinate  them  to  one  predominant  group  type. 
It  does  this  with  a  clear  realisation  that  its  ideals 
can  only  be  maintained  where  there  is  a  measure  of 
homogeneity  in  the  social  texture. 

There  are  two  alternatives  before  the  South  where 
this  inherent  antagonism  between  democracy  and 
race  conditions  exists  in  its  acutest  form.  The  whites 
may  strive  to  maintain  an  "equality  before  the 
law"  for  the  negro  without  social  admixture  or  racial 
amalgamation.  This  would  make  it  necessary  for 
the  white  or  dominant  group  to  keep  the  negro  group 
in  a  strained  and  artificial  status.  It  would  assume 
that  natural  racial  differences  could  be  overcome  on 
the  basis  of  an  artificial  equality.  Equality  before 
the  law  would  then  be  assured  to  the  black  only  by 
virtue  of  the  whites  ignoring  existing  inequalities  and 
restraining  his  own  race  antipathies.  The  negro 
would  thereby  become  to  all  intents  and  purposes  the 
ward  of  the  intelligent  and  law-abiding  white.  He 
would  enjoy  his  rights  not  because  of  like  social  equip- 
ment and  like  effective  responses  to  the  demands  of 
the  social  situation  but  by  virtue  of  a  "veiled  pro- 
tectorate" exercised  over  him  by  the  white.  In  this 
way  there  would  be  a  nominal  vindication  of  the 


254  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

principles  of  democracy  expressed  in  the  fourteenth 
amendment. 

This  abnormal  situation  would  involve,  however, 
a  strain  upon  the  political  and  social  order  of  the 
South  which  can  only  be  appreciated  by  those  who 
have  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  conditions.  Such 
a  strained  condition  would  have  only  one  possible 
justification;  namely,  that  it  is  a  necessary  prelimi- 
nary stage  to  the  final  complete  social  integration 
of  the  negro,  through  the  social  admixture  and  the 
racial  amalgamation  which  this  involves.  The  white 
would  thus  be  asked  to  hold  the  negro  at  arm's  length 
until,  through  the  elimination  of  the  socially  unfit, 
the  clandestine  infusion  of  white  blood  and  the  slow 
approximation  within  the  negro  group  to  the  test 
of  the  white  man's  law  and  to  the  genius  of  the  white 
man's  civilisation,  he  could  be  absorbed  without 
endangering  the  integrity  of  the  dominant  type. 

Such  a  solution,  however,  is  not  practical.  It 
exaggerates  rather  than  relieves  actual  difficulties. 
It  may,  indeed,  be  questioned  whether  it  would  be 
worth  what  it  would  cost  when  realised.  Those 
faced  with  the  actual  conditions  of  life  must  seek  a 
practical  working  basis,  even  though  this  necessi- 
tates a  modification  of  the  principles  of  an  absolute 
democracy.  Jefferson  himself,  though  heartily  op- 
posed to  slavery,  clearly  recognised  the  impossibility 


EQUALITY   BEFORE   THE   LAW  25$ 

of  successfully  applying  his  political  philosophy  to  a 
society  composed  of  the  two  races.  "Nothing  is 
more  certainly  written  in  the  book  of  fate,"  he  de- 
clares, "than  that  these  people  are  to  be  free;  nor 
is  it  less  certain  that  the  two  races,  equally  free, 
cannot  live  in  the  same  government.  Nature,  habit, 
opinion  have  drawn  indelible  lines  between  them."1 
The  fate  of  the  Reconstruction  legislation  in  behalf 
of  the  negro  amply  illustrates  the  truth  of  Jeffer- 
son's dictum. 

Mr.  Justice  Brown,  in  rendering  the  decision  of  the 
supreme  court  in  the  case  of  Plessy  vs.  Ferguson, 
declaring  that  the  state  has  the  right  to  separate  the 
races  on  passenger  trains,  enunciated  a  principle  of 
the  very  greatest  importance  in  the  matter  of  race 
adjustment.  "Legislation  is  powerless,"  he  says, 
"to  eradicate  racial  instincts  or  to  abolish  distinctions 
based  upon  physical  differences,  and  the  attempt  to 
do  so  can  only  result  in  accentuating  the  difficulties 
of  the  present  situation.  ...  If  one  race  be  inferior 
to  the  other  socially,  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  cannot  put  them  upon  the  same  plane." 

This  recognition  of  race  differences  as  the  basis  of 

race  separation  presents  very  interesting  possibilities 

for   regulating  the    legal  status  of    the    two  races. 

Previously    these   differences   had   been   ignored   or 

1  Works,  I,  p.  48.  •  Collins,  op.  cit.,  p.  849. 


256  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

denied  in  the  zeal  for  an  undiscriminating  appli- 
cation of  the  principle  of  equality  in  the  fourteenth 
amendment.  The  underlying  assumption  of  that 
amendment  was  the  essential  sameness  of  members 
of  the  community  in  instincts  and  capacities  for 
social  organisation  and  efficiency.  Mr.  Justice 
Brown's  dictum  suggests  that  racial  differences  or 
racial  peculiarities  should  be  first  considered  in  deter- 
mining legal  status.  This  can  be  done  without 
violating  the  principles  of  justice.  He  insists  further- 
more that  laws  permitting  and  even  requiring  the 
separation  of  the  races  where  contact  is  liable  to  give 
rise  to  race  friction  "do  not  necessarily  imply  the 
inferiority  of  either  race  to  the  other." 

It  must  be  frankly  acknowledged,  however,  that 
to  make  inherent  racial  differences  a  basis  for  deter- 
mining legal  status  presupposes  a  different  conception 
of  justice  from  that  in  the  minds  of  the  framers  of 
the  Reconstruction  acts.  It  suggests  that  justice  is 
not  synonymous  with  the  impartial  assurance  to  all 
of  certain  inalienable  rights  which  they  possess 
independent  of  the  accidents  of  race,  individual 
capacity,  social  position  and  the  like.  Justice  becomes 
thereby  not  a  matter  of  equality  of  opportunity 
but  rather  of  equality  of  consideration.  Every  indi- 
vidual or  group  of  individuals  brings  to  society  a 
certain  equipment,  partly  hereditary  and  racial, 


EQUALITY   BEFORE   THE    LAW  257 

partly  due  to  the  accidents  of  social  position  or 
personal  endowment.  The  determination  of  rights 
must  be  based  upon  a  consideration  of  this  equipment. 
It  follows  that  the  ends  sought  by  justice,  namely, 
freedom  and  equality,  are  relative  terms.  They  can- 
not be  the  same  for  any  two  individuals  or  groups 
of  individuals,  inasmuch  as  inherent  capacities 
and  potentialities  vary  in  individuals  and  groups. 
Equality  before  the  law  can  never  mean  an  ab- 
solute equality.  This  has  never  been  attained, 
and  is,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  an  impossible 
desideratum  of  social  justice.  Equality  before  the 
law  can  only  mean  for  an  individual  or  a  group  the 
impartial  guarantee  of  the  law's  protection,  in  the 
development  —  in  their  own  interest  and  that  of  soci- 
ety —  of  the  capacities  with  which  they  are  endowed. 
A  fundamental  weakness  of  the  American  people, 
remarked  upon  by  De  Tocqueville,  is  the  tendency 
to  identify  democracy  with  equality  rather  than  with 
freedom.  Equality  is  much  easier  of  comprehension 
than  freedom.  The  charms  of  equality  are  every 
moment  felt  and  find  illustration  at  every  turn  in  the 
actual  facts  of  society.  Freedom,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  more  subtle  and  spiritual.  It  comes  only  through 
individual  struggle  and  effort,  while  equality  appears 
more  tangible  and  within  the  power  of  political  instru- 
ments to  confer.  In  the  zeal  for  equality  often  liberty 


258  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

is  lost.  This  was  true  of  the  revolutionists  who  over- 
threw Bourbon  rule  in  France.  It  was  likewise  true 
of  the  doctrinaires  of  Reconstruction  who  pushed  the 
idea  of  equality  to  such  extremes  that  the  liberties 
of  free  democratic  institutions  were  lost  in  the  rule 
of  a  military  despotism. 

Unfortunately  the  negro  and  his  champions  have 
too  often  fallen  heir  to  the  political  philosophy  of  the 
Reconstruction  period  in  their  tendency  to  identify 
democracy  with  equality.  We  have  a  school  of  negro 
leaders  who  are  constantly  harping  upon  equal  rights. 
They  deny  most  indignantly  that  the  race  to  which 
they  belong  is  in  any  way  not  the  equal  of  the  domi- 
nant race.  They  raise  funds  for  the  investigation 
of  instances  where  this  equality  is  denied  or  abridged 
and  invoke  the  arm  of  the  law  for  its  preservation. 
The  implication  of  such  a  policy  is  that  the  race 
problem  will  be  solved  when  the  negro  as  a  race  and 
as  an  individual  has  been  assured  by  law  of  the  en- 
joyment of  an  artificial  status  of  equality.  This  is 
for  them  identical  with  the  essence  of  democracy. 

We  have  also  another  school,  led  by  Dr.  Booker 
T.  Washington,  who  have  very  little  to  say  about 
equality,  either  social  or  political.  They  are  tireless, 
however,  in  their  efforts  to  secure  for  the  negro  larger 
freedom  for  self-development.  They  preach  a  gospel 
of  "salvation  through  economic,  industrial,  and  moral 


EQUALITY   BEFORE   THE   LAW 

training."  For  them  the  essence  of  democracy,  so 
far  as  the  negro  is  concerned,  is  not  equality  with  the 
white  in  an  absolute  sense,  but  equal  consideration 
with  the  white  so  far  as  powers  for  social  service  are 
concerned.  They  realise  that  the  free  man  is  not 
the  man  endowed  with  legal  privileges  he  has  never 
earned  and  cannot  appreciate.  The  free  man  is 
one  in  the  full  exercise  of  his  particular  capacities  as 
a  social  being,  a  situation  not  incompatible  with  social 
or  political  inequalities. 

Much  of  the  tragic  isolation  and  helplessness  of 
the  negro  in  our  social  order  is  due  to  this  unreason- 
ing devotion  to  equality  while  persistently  ignoring 
the  matter  of  capacity.  As  DeTocqueville  observes, 
"Equality  sets  men  apart  and  weakens  them." l 
In  establishing  such  a  claim  the  individual  places 
himself  more  or  less  in  competition  with  his  fellows. 
Equality  ignores  the  personal  element.  It  eliminates 
the  claims  to  personal  sympathy  and  weakens  the 
bonds  of  affection  which  often  exist  together  with 
inequalities.  The  individual  who  boasts  his  equality 
may  appeal  to  the  community  as  a  whole  when  op- 
pressed, not  to  individuals,  for  such  an  appeal  would 
be  the  acknowledgment  of  inequality.  This  appeal 
to  the  community  for  the  vindication  of  rights  is 
only  effective  when  the  individual  is  social  and 

1  Democracy  in  America,  II,  p.  339. 


260  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

solid  with  the  group  as  a  whole.  This  social  soli- 
darity does  not  usually  exist  if  he  belongs  to  an  alien 
race,  and  under  these  conditions  his  appeal  is  often 
in  vain.  Hence  the  bitter  complaint  frequently 
heard  from  negro  writers  that  the  nation,  and  espe- 
cially the  North,  has  forgotten  its  earlier  enthusiasm 
for  the  negro's  rights,  and  to-day  has  left  him  to  tread 
the  winepress  alone.1 

A  political  philosophy  that  identified  democracy 
with  the  doctrine  of  equality  of  opportunity  admirably 
fitted  the  earlier  stages  in  the  history  of  the  American 
people.  The  unlimited  natural  resources  encouraged 
individual  initiative  and  seemed  to  demand  a  corre- 
sponding individualistic  interpretation  of  democracy. 
Furthermore,  the  general  ethnic  homogeneity  of  the 
peoples  that  settled  the  early  colonies  prevented  men 
from  feeling  the  inherent  difficulties  that  arise  when 
races  of  widely  different  characteristics  are  thrown 
together  in  considerable  numbers  in  the  same  politi- 
cal order.  The  first  shock  of  disillusionment  came 
with  the  breakdown  of  the  Reconstruction  experiment. 
It  demonstrated  most  effectually  that  equality  of 
opportunity,  politically  or  otherwise,  is  impossible 
where  more  fundamental  inequalities  in  political  and 
social  capacities  are  present. 

1  Grimke,  "Why  Disfranchisement  is  Bad,"  Atlantic  Monthly, 
July,  1904,  p.  91. 


EQUALITY  BEFORE  THE  LAW  26l 

With  the  growing  interdependence  of  men  as  a 
result  of  the  interlocking  and  mutualisation  of  the 
social  order,  the  insufficiency  of  theoretic  equality 
as   a   solution   of    the   race    problem    has   become 
more  evident.     The  effect  of  our  tense,  highly  spe- 
cialised, modern  life  is  to  accentuate  special  aptitudes 
as    well    as    special    weaknesses.     Competition    has 
brought  about  an  elimination  of  those  who  are  socially 
and  economically  unfit.    This  is  unmistakably  true 
of  the  negro.    He  has  slowly  disappeared,  as  we  have 
seen,  from  many  callings,  such  as  that  of  the  barber, 
the  caterer,  the  waiter,  and  the  bootblack.     Investi- 
gation of  conditions  in  northern  cities  reveals  the  in- 
ability of  the  black  to  compete  with  foreign  labourers  in 
spite  of  the  advantage  of  being  a  native-born  Amer- 
ican.1    Mr.  Stone,  an  authority  upon  the  economic 
phase  of  the  question,  remarks  that  there  is  but  one 
spot  in  this  broad  land  where  the  race  "may  obey  the 
command  to  eat  its  bread  in  the  sweat  of  its  face  side 
by  side  with  the  white  man,"  and  that  is  in  the  South.2 
The  negro  has  enjoyed  equality  of  opportunity  in  all 
these  situations ;  the  advantage  has  even  been  in  his 
favour,  as  in  the  case  of  his  struggle  with  the  foreigner. 
Nevertheless,    he    has   suffered    slow   but   effectual 
economic  defeat. 

1  Ovington,  Half  a  Man,  p.  101. 

*  Studies  in  the  American  Race  Problem,  p.  164. 


262  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

In  the  far  South,  where  the  negro  is  the  labour  supply 
and  where  racial  characteristics  affect  the  situation, 
unrestricted  freedom  and  equality  of  opportunity 
may  work  still  greater  injustice  to  the  negro  and 
to  society  as  a  whole.  This  is  illustrated  in  the 
difficulties  experienced  by  the  planters  of  the  far 
South  in  securing  efficient  labour  from  the  negro 
peasantry  —  peonage  itself  has  been  called  "simply 
a  desperate  attempt  to  make  men  earn  their  living."1 
In  spite  of  carefully  laid  plans,  offers  of  good  wages, 
and  other  indulgences,  the  thriftless  and  care-free 
negro  often  deserts  the  planter  while  still  in  his  debt. 
The  planter  has  no  means  of  redress,  since  he  cannot 
forcibly  hold  the  negro  for  debt.  The  negro  usually 
has  no  property  he  can  levy  upon.  Professor  Hart 
thinks  that  the  South  has  no  remedy,  under  democratic 
institutions,  for  such  a  situation.  "It  is  the  con- 
comitant of  freedom  that  the  private  labourer  shall 
not  be  compelled  to  work  by  force ;  there  is  no  way 
by  which  the  South  can  cancel  this  triumph  of  civili- 
sation, the  exercise  of  free  will."  2  In  other  words, 
democratic  equality  demands  the  same  treatment  for 
white  as  for  black  workmen  in  spite  of  fundamental 
differences  in  social  instincts  and  economic  efficiency. 

It  may  be  fairly  questioned,  in  view  of  the  preced- 
ing analysis  of  race  traits,  whether  we  can  reason 

1  Hart,  The  Southern  South,  p.  287.  2  Op.  cit.,  p.  287. 


EQUALITY  BEFORE   THE  LAW  263 

directly  from  the  conditions  in  the  free,  intelligent, 
competitive  industrial  order  of  the  white  in  the  North 
to  the  conditions  facing  the  planter  in  the  "black 
belt."  The  equal  right  of  every  labourer  to  work  or 
not  to  work,  a  right  be  it  observed  which  is  being 
abridged  in  the  North  in  many  ways  by  labour  organi- 
sations as  well  as  by  arbitration  in  the  interest  of  the 
public  welfare,  is  granted  on  the  presumption  of  a 
realisation  of  the  moral  responsibility  of  its  exercise. 
Where  race  differences  make  such  a  social  and  moral 
solidarity  impossible,  where  the  labourer  capriciously 
and  thoughtlessly  exercises  this  right  in  a  way  that 
endangers  the  economic  welfare  of  the  community 
as  a  whole,  the  tendency  of  the  dominant  race  will 
be  to  ignore  this  right  entirely. 

In  the  laws  and  regulations  looking  to  the  control  of 
this  uncertain  labour  supply,  the  South  was  not  trying 
to  "cancel  that  triumph  of  civilisation,  the  exercise 
of  free  will."  She  was  trying  to  insure  for  herself 
a  stable  economic  and  industrial  order,  without  which 
there  can  be  no  material  progress,  and  no  freedom 
to  enjoy.  The  failure  of  peonage  to  meet  the  situa- 
tion does  not  prove  that  wise  laws  based  upon  a  care- 
ful consideration  of  race  traits  of  the  negro,  training 
him  in  industrial  efficiency  and  insuring  his  intelli- 
gent and  sympathetic  participation  in  the  public 
welfare  under  the  direction  of  the  white,  might  not 


264  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

be  a  blessing  to  both  races.  Such  a  "veiled  protec- 
torate" is,  of  course,  impossible  in  a  democracy 
based  upon  principles  of  absolute  equality.  It  might 
be  possible  in  a  democracy  based  upon  equality  of 
consideration.  The  only  alternative  to  it  is  the  rigid 
application  to  the  southern  situation  of  the  principle 
of  equality  of  opportunity  in  a  competitive  industrial 
order.  This  can  have  but  one  result,  namely,  the 
creation  of  race  friction,  the  decrease  of  sympathy 
between  the  two  groups,  and  ultimately  the  economic 
elimination  of  the  negro  in  the  South  as  he  has  been 
eliminated  in  the  North. 

A  "veiled  protectorate"  is  objectionable  because 
it  would  mean  in  reality  the  legalisation  of  a  caste 
system  in  the  South.  To  be  sure,  the  essential 
characteristic  of  all  caste  systems,  "the  absolute 
prohibition  of  mixed  marriages,"  has  always  existed 
in  the  South  and  will  continue  to  exist  there  indefi- 
nitely, the  principles  of  American  democracy  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.  The  facts  seem  to  indi- 
cate that  caste  distinctions  are  growing  more  rigid 
and  inflexible  with  the  passage  of  time.  The  phe- 
nomena of  race  friction  are  disappearing  directly  in 
proportion  to  their  recognition.  Indeed,  Professor 
Willcox  is  of  the  opinion  that  "the  two  races  at  the 
South  and  perhaps  in  the  whole  country  are  uncon- 
sciously but  painfully  drifting  toward  a  substitute 


EQUALITY   BEFORE   THE   LAW  265 

for  the  slavery  system,  which  differs  from  slavery 
in  being  less  frankly  and  obviously,  if  not  less  really, 
at  war  with  modern  tendencies  and  American  ideals, 
and  yet  which  bids  fair  to  provide  a  more  stable 
social  equilibrium  than  existed  at  the  South  between 
the  civil  war  and  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century." 1 

We  have  witnessed  at  the  South  the  gradual 
legalisation  of  these  social  differentiations  that  have 
always  existed.  These  state  laws  have  received 
the  sanction  of  the  supreme  court.  The  nation  at 
large  has  not  opposed  them  in  spite  of  their  inherent 
antagonism  to  the  principles  of  democracy  as  laid 
down  in  the  federal  constitution.  California's  recent 
legislation  against  the  Japanese  seems  to  indicate 
that  similar  laws  will  be  enacted  in  all  sections  where 
divergent  races  exist  together  in  numbers  sufficient 
to  cause  race  friction.  Such  laws  arise  out  of  the 
immediate  necessity  of  maintaining  the  social  equi- 
librium and  are  essentially  transitional  in  character. 
They  often  have  small  regard  for  a  priori  ideas  of 
democracy. 

Apart  from  the  matter  of  social  expediency,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  such  distinctions  are  not 
without  a  measure  of  justification.  Social  differen- 
tiations have  always  existed,  even  in  societies  that 
have  attained  an  advanced  stage  of  ethnic  homoge- 

1  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  XIII,  pp.  820,  821. 


266  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE  FRICTION 

neity.  A  certain  amount  of  such  social  differentiations 
is  indispensable  to  a  healthy  social  order.  They  are 
the  natural  means  of  preserving  social  values  which 
might  otherwise  be  lost.  Loyalty  to  absolute  de- 
mocracy may  very  well  blind  one  to  the  fact  that 
such  an  ideal  cannot  be  attained  without  the  impov- 
erishment of  society  as  a  whole.  There  is  something 
supremely  selfish  in  a  social  or  political  philosophy 
that  insists  upon  the  elevation  of  one  group  by  cheap- 
ening the  life  of  other  groups  and  bringing  all  to  the 
dead  level  of  an  unenviable  mediocrity.  In  this 
sense  race  antipathy,  though  often  unreasoning  and 
in  individual  cases  reprehensible,  may  on  the  whole 
have  its  place  as  nature's  means  for  preserving  group 
values,  thus  ultimately  contributing  to  the  welfare  of 
the  community  as  a  whole.  Race  antipathies  do 
often  make  for  the  preservation  of  cultural  levels  and 
group  diversity.  Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
good  of  society  as  a  whole,  the  laws  requiring  racial 
segregation  in  the  South  are  undoubtedly  based  upon 
a  sound  social  philosophy. 

The  conclusions  arrived  at  in  this  and  the  foregoing 
chapters  are  largely  antagonistic  to  the  orthodox 
conceptions  of  democracy.  They  are,  however,  but 
a  statement  of  the  necessary  conclusions  to  be  drawn 
from  the  facts  of  the  actual  relations  of  the  two 
races.  They  have  even  found  formulation  in  the 


EQUALITY   BEFORE   THE   LAW  267 

decisions  of  the  supreme  court.  A  student  of  these 
decisions  draws  this  general  conclusion:  "The  world 
has  come  to  realise  that  equality  between  negroes 
and  Caucasians  cannot  be  created  by  legislation, 
and  that  the  negro's  position  as  one  of  inferiority, 
of  equality,  or  of  superiority  will  depend  upon  what 
he  is,  or  may  make  of  himself,  and  not  upon  any  arti- 
ficial or  civic  conditions  or  status  which  a  statute  may 
impose  or  confer." l  Racial  differences  will  not 
down.  They  lie  at  the  root  of  such  manifestations 
of  race  friction  as  the  "colour  line."  In  actual  fact 
they  place  the  negro  in  a  different  status  from  the 
white  despite  civil  rights  bills  and  war  amendments. 
The  result  is  that  at  present  he  occupies  the  unfor- 
tunate position  of  a  social  and  legal  nondescript. 
The  unwritten  laws  of  custom,  convention,  and  colour 
discrimination  assign  him  one  position  in  the  social 
order,  while  the  written  laws  and  constitution  give 
him  another.  Between  these  two  extremes  he  swings 
like  a  Mahomet's  coffin,  the  innocent  victim  of  forces 
over  which  he  has  no  control  and  for  which  he  is  not 
responsible. 

The  difficulty,  not  to  say  the  insolubility,  of  the 
problem  is  due  to  the  fact  that  there  is  no  provision 
in  American  democracy  for  a  status  based  upon  caste. 

1  Dake,  "The  Negro  before  the  Supreme  Court,"  Albany  Law 
Journal,  vol.  66,  pp.  238. 


268  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

The  recognition  of  such  a  status  would  amount  to 
the  negation  of  democracy. 

Summing  up  our  conclusions,  we  remark  first  that 
the  semblance  of  democracy  may  be  preserved,  as 
has  been  suggested,  by  maintaining  the  negro  in  the 
enjoyment  of  an  artificial  state  of  equality  until, 
through  a  slow  process  of  social  selection  and  a  gradual 
approximation  to  the  type  of  the  dominant  group 
he  is  ready  for  complete  assimilation.  Such  a  solu- 
tion is  impossible.  It  presupposes  for  an  indefinite 
length  of  time  a  mere  modus  vivendi  injurious  to  both 
groups.  For  the  white  it  is  intolerable  and  even 
unthinkable,  as  it  means  ultimately  the  substitution 
of  something  new  and  unknown  for  his  civilisation 
and  racial  identity,  involving  perhaps  the  destruction 
of  both.  Its  immediate  effect  upon  the  negro  group 

would  be  to  surround  it  with  an  atmosphere  of  senti- 

• 
mental  rights  and  privileges  not  conducive  to  the 

training  of  a  virile  and  efficient  citizenship. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  conceivable  that  the  prin- 
ciples of  American  democracy  may  perforce  undergo 
modification  to  the  extent  of  permitting  a  status 
based  upon  race  traits  and  the  resulting  caste  dis- 
tinctions. In  support  of  this  view  our  attention  is 
directed  to  the  imperative  need  of  a  stable  social 
order  and  the  actual  facts  of  race  adjustment  as  they 
have  taken  place  in  the  South  since  the  civil  war. 


EQUALITY   BEFORE    THE   LAW  269 

Such  a  situation,  however,  apart  from  its  violation 
of  the  spirit  of  democracy,  serves  only  to  perpetuate 
and  to  stereotype  rather  than  to  solve  the  problem. 
It  would  perpetuate  it  as  slavery  did  or  as  peonage 
would  do.  To  be  sure  it  would  secure  a  stable  social 
order  and  might  lessen  race  friction  and  bring  about 
more  cooperation  and  sympathy,  but  the  stability 
would  be  that  of  the  society  of  Hindustan  or  of 
Egypt,  and  the  sympathy  and  cooperation  would  be 
that  between  the  serf  and  his  lord. 

A  third  alternative  is  to  accept  the  situation  as  it 
is,  with  all  the  complications  arising  from  segregation 
and  race  antipathy,  and  to  insist  upon  a  stern,  even- 
handed  justice  based  upon  equality  of  consideration. 
This  implies,  of  course,  that  each  individual  as  well 
as  each  racial  group  be  free  to  find  a  natural  level  in 
society.  This  implies  also  competition  of  the  most 
vigorous  and  comprehensive  nature,  industrial,  moral, 
cultural,  and  even  ethnic.  It  means  the  elimination 
of  the  unfit  and  the  preservation  of  the  fit.  Most 
important  of  all,  it  means  in  the  end  a  healthy  and 
permanent  and  progressive  civilisation.  This  is  the 
only  effective  method  history  has  thus  far  revealed 
of  testing  and  preserving  that  which  is  ultimately 
and  supremely  worth  while. 

One  hesitates  somewhat  to  close  this  study  with  a 
conclusion  so  far  removed  from  the  enthusiastic  and 


27O  DEMOCRACY  AND  RACE   FRICTION 

thoroughly  well-meaning  humanitarianism  of  half  a 
century  ago.  At  the  same  time  it  is  evident  that 
no  other  solution  will  successfully  meet  the  demands 
of  our  militant  American  democracy.  It  may  very 
well  be  that  competition  and  social  selection,  stretch- 
ing over  long  periods  of  time,  will  bring  about  that 
ethnic  homogeneity  which  seems  to  be  a  prerequisite 
to  social  solidarity  and  an  efficient  democracy.  It 
may  also  be  an  inevitable  corollary  of  this  process  of 
social  selection,  as  some  writers  contend,  that  "there 
are  few  that  be  saved."  Certainly  everything  seems 
to  indicate  that  the  negro,  as  a  member  of  the  weaker 
and  ethnically  diverse  group,  is  at  present  undergoing 
and  must  continue  indefinitely  to  undergo  some  such 
stern  process  of  social  selection.  Fate  has  decreed 
he  must  undergo  this  process  within  the  predeter- 
mined limits  of  the  white  man's  civilisation  and  yet 
to  a  certain  extent  outside  of  that  civilisation.  The 
result  is  that,  apart  from  the  sympathy  and  occa- 
sional helping  hand  of  his  white  brother,  he  must 
indeed  tread  the  wine-press  alone. 


INDEX 


African  Negro,  the,  and  western  civi- 
lisation, 80  ff. 

Anglo-Saxon,  great  social  organiser, 

89. 
litigiousness  of,  66  ff . 

Atlanta       University      Publications, 
192,  208,  210,  214,  216. 

"Black   belt,"    double   standard   of 

conduct  in,  14. 
negro  home  in,  206,  208. 
sexual  morality  among  negroes  of, 

i88ff. 

"Black  codes,"  the,  and  the  four- 
teenth amendment,  225. 
original  intent  of,  94. 
Boston,  and  the  "colour  line,"  173. 
Brown,  Justice,  quoted,  234,  255. 

Caste,  traces  of,  in  the  South,  264. 

incompatible  with  democracy,  267. 
Colour,  as  a  badge  of  group  differ- 
ences, 133. 

"Colour  line,"  the,  as  a  necessary 
modus  vivendi,  164,  165. 

and  social  instability  at  the  South, 
i68ff. 

an  inevitable  outcome  of  the  social 
situation,  179  f. 

as  influenced  by  Reconstruction, 
i66ff. 

as  influenced  by  numbers,  172  ff. 

drawing  of,  among  negroes,  in. 

in  the  South  and  South  Africa, 
170  ff. 

origin  of,  in  the  South,  163  ff. 

viewed  as  a  sectional  creation,  157. 

why  lacking  in  Jamaica,  159  ff. 

Democracy,  efficient,  conditions  of, 

6. 

and  equality  of  opportunity,  260. 
and  race  traits,  20  ff . 


Democracy,   and    race   segregation, 

235  ff- 
identified  with  equality  rather  than 

freedom,  257. 

DeTocqueville,  n,  18,  220,  257,  259. 
Douglass,  Fred,  on  the  South  and  the 

negro,  118. 
Dred  Scott,  the,  case,  221. 

Education,  problem  of,  for  the  negro, 

99  ff- 
English,  policy  towards  the  negro  in 

Jamaica,  159  ff. 
and  the  negro  in  South  Africa,  163, 

170  ff. 
Equality,    before   the   law,    various 

meanings  of,  253,  268  ff. 
and  racial  differences,  256  ff. 
and  race  segregation,  233  ff.,  250. 
not    the    product    of    legislation, 

266  ff. 

of  consideration,  269. 
of  opportunity  and  social  injustice, 

262. 

Family,  the  negro,  as  influenced  by 

the  white,  196  ff. 
Field,  Justice,  quoted,  227. 
Fifteenth  amendment,  the,  and  the 

negro,  236  ff. 
Fourteenth  amendment,  the,  and  the 

negro,  224  ff. 

Giles,  case  of,  242. 

Gregariousness,    of    the    negro    as 

affecting  the  home,  209  ff. 
Group    traditions,    uncertainty    of, 

among  the  negroes,  185  ff. 
and  sexual  morality,  187  ff. 
as  reflected  in  the  negro  preacher, 

189  ff. 

borrowed  by  the  negro  from  the 
white,  195  ff. 


271 


272 


INDEX 


Group  traditions,  lack  of,  and  the 

negro  criminal,  186. 
lack  of,  creates  pessimism,  194  ff. 
negro's    difficulty     in     absorbing 
those  of  the  white,  199  ff. 

Home,  the  negro,  in  the  "black  belt," 

212. 

estimate  of  moral  influence,  205  ff. 
evidence  of  improvement  in  the 

"black  belt,"  215. 
life  of,  47  ff  . 

Illegitimacy,    among    the    negroes, 

59  «. 
Imitation,  the  part  it  plays  in  social 

integration,  8,  96  ff  . 
kinds  of,  98,  199. 
of   white's  ideals   by   the   negro, 

198  ff. 
Inefficiency,  industrial,  and  the  fate 

of  the  negro,  119  ff. 
Instincts,  and  social  solidarity,  2. 
"Intellectuals,"  the,  and  the  social 

heritage,  12. 
the  pessimism  of,  194. 
views    on    racial    intermarriages, 


Jamaica,  and  the  "colour  line,"  188. 
marital  relations  among  the  negroes 

of,  211. 
sexual  morality  among  the  blacks 

of,  188. 

James  w.  Bowman,  case  of,  239. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  quoted,  255. 
Jews,  persecution  of,  in  middle  ages, 
125. 

Language,    as    illustrating    external 

imitation,  100  ff. 
and  the  social  heritage,  79. 

Marriage,  influenced  by  group  con- 

sciousness, 144  ff. 
and  race  antipathy,  141  ff. 
disastrous  results  of,  mixed,  149  ff. 
mixed,  attitude  of  negro  leaders 

towards,  151  ff. 
McKenna,  Justice,  quoted,  241. 


Miller,  Justice,  quoted,  227,  228. 

Missionaries,  criticisms  of,  83  ff. 

Mississippi,  disfranchising  constitu- 
tion of,  224,  240. 
estranged    relations   of    races   in, 
io6ff. 

Mulatto,  the,  as  a  factor  in  race 
friction,  152  ff. 

Natural     Rights,     bankruptcy     of 

theory  of,  245. 

Natural  Selection,  and  race  dif- 
ferences, 24. 

Negro,  alleged  inferiority  as  a  race, 
75- 

brain-weight   and    mental   capac- 
ity, 30  ff. 

children    compared    with    white, 
35  ff-, 

economic  defeat  in  the  North,  117. 

esthetical  nature,  55  ff. 

exaggerated  sense  of  self,  100. 

excels  in  memory  power,  52  f. 

fewer  variations  from  the  average 
than  the  white,  32  f. 

gregariousness,  67,  90  ff.,  209  ff. 

imagery  in  his  thinking,  53  ff. 

imitative  nature,  97  ff . 

influence  of  habitat  on,  25. 

insanity,  36  ff. 

instincts,  56  ff. 

mobile  temperament,  38  f. 

pessimism,  194. 

pliancy    hi    contact    with    other 
peoples,  197. 

reasoning  powers,  77. 

religious  life,  41,  43. 

restricted    vocational    opportuni- 
ties, 91. 

sex  impulse,  28  ff.,  57  ff. 

suggestibility,  40  ff .,  49. 

suppression  of,  and  its  effects  upon 
the  white,  107  ff. 

Pace  vs.  Alabama,  case  of,  233. 

Personality,  effect  upon,  of  occupa- 
tion, 86  ff. 

Philadelphia,  and  the  "colour  line," 
174. 

Plessy  vs.  Ferguson,  case  of,  233. 


INDEX 


273 


Preacher,  the  negro,  reflects  ideals  of 
his  group,  189  ff. 

Race,  meaning  of,  21  ff. 

Race  antipathy,  as  a  means  of  group 

self-preservation,  71,  146  ff. 
and  the  Jew,  125. 
and  social  solidarity,  177. 
primitive  forms  of,  130  ff . 
segregating  effect  upon  the  negro, 

123  ff. 

theories  as  to,  126  ff. 
Race  consciousness,  and  rape,  138  ff . 
and  group  contacts,  70. 
mystery  of,  134. 
Race  differences,  nature  of,  74. 
Race  friction,  and  economic  competi- 
tion, 135  f. 

and  the  negro  criminal,  137  ff. 
source    of    in    American    democ- 
racy, ii. 

Race  problem,  difficulties  of,  15  ff. 
Race  traits,  difficult  to  define,  26  ff. 
Reason,  emphasis  of  in  social 

progress,  88  ff . 
Reconstruction,  acts  changed  by  the 

supreme  court,  223  ff. 
Russian  serfs,  and  the  negro,  95. 

Segregation,  and  the  social  heritage, 

102  f. 

and  double  moral  standard,  184  f. 
recognised  by  the  supreme  court, 

233  ff.,  255. 
results    in    a    white-man-democ- 

racy,  252. 
Sex  morality,  and  group  traditions, 

187. 
Simon-Binet  tests,  and  the  negro  of 

"black  belt,"  189. 
"Skin- prejudice,"  129,  132. 
Slaughter   House,    cases,    226,    228, 

22Q. 


Slavery,  and  sex  morality,  61. 
Slavery,   favoured  intimate  contact 

with  white,  104  f. 
"Social  copy,"  need  of,  within  the 

negro  group,  1 10  f . 
Social  heritage,  assimilation  of,  diffi- 
cult for  the  negro,  86,  90  f. 
and  development  of  personality,  10. 
as  in8uenced  by  race  traits,  8,  19. 
its  nature,  7. 
Social  integration,  of  the  negro,  180. 

problem  of, 'for  the  negro,  115  fi . 
Social    organisation,   and    progress, 

82  ff. 
Social  solidarity,  presupposes  ethnic, 

252. 
absence   of,  between  whites   and 

blacks,  107. 
"Solid   South,"   the,   a  product  of 

Reconstruction,  167,  168. 
South  Africa,  and  English  treatment 

of  the  negro,  170  f. 
Status,  legal,  of  negro,  three  stages 
in,  221  ff. 

Taney,  Justice,  dictum  of,  222. 
Temperament,  racial  differences  in, 
69. 

Veddahs,  of  Ceylon,  67. 

Washington,  and  the  "colour  line," 

175  ff- 

White  supremacy,   and  social   self- 
preservation,  is,  178  ff. 

Whites,  the  poor,  treatment  of  ne- 
groes, 136. 
negro  dependent  upon,  for  ideals, 

iQS  f- 

Wilcox,  on  the  fate  of  the  negro,  116. 
Williams  vs.  Mississippi,  case  of,  240. 
Woman,  the  negro,  her  place  in  the 

home,  213. 


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